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Copyright N°. 


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OUR FARM 

IN 

CEDAR VALLEY 


By Edward Hart 

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THE CHEMICAL PUBLISHING CO. 
EASTON. PA.. 1923 



Copyright, 1923, by Edward Hart 



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To Anna 





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“A Christmas Song 1918” and “A Song of Days” 
printed on Pages 84 and 85, first appeared in the New 
York Sun and are here reprinted by the kind permission 
of the editor. 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VALLEY 

CHAPTER I 

The Farmer’s Life 

• 

HE life of the farmer has always 
seemed the happiest and the most 
wholesome life. When it is not happy 
and wholesome it must be the fault 
not of the farm but of the farmer. 

Just now it is early summer; the 
leaves are fully blown but not yet 
insect-riddled; the flowers are blooming, especially the 
roses and peonies; the sky is clear and the sun is shining 
with the warmth that stimulates to rapid growth the corn, 
tomato, egg-plant and mango. There has been rain 
enough and there is hope of more to come. We have 
planted an orchard. We have planted peas, potatoes, 
parsley, corn, cabbage, cucumbers, beets, beans, kohl 
rabi, lettuce, onions, okra and sweet potatoes; we are re¬ 
joicing in the growth of all these good things, and the 
water comes into our mouths as we think of the feasts 
to come. 

There will be drouth of course, and potato bugs, and 
cut worms, and blights of many kinds, but if we plant 
enough we shall have plenty to eat and some to exchange 
for clothes and books. 












2 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VALLEY 


There is nothing that compares with the pleasure of 
preparing the earth, planting, tilling and harvesting the 
crop. The true farmer is a creator; the seed he sows 
brings forth many fold; he is a benefactor; from him 
others derive necessities and luxuries. This has never 
been so apparent as during and since the great war. As 
a result of this great struggle we appreciate the value of 
the simple things the farmer can command. 

And the quality of the things he can command! An 
egg is an entirely different mouthful when fresh and 
when stale. Scarce a product of the farm is so good as it 
tastes to the farmer; his strawberries, raspberries, black¬ 
berries, cherries and grapes are fresh — not the mussy, 
half moldy city berry. His asparagus is plump and unwil¬ 
ted; the peas are just right; so is the green corn and the 
beets and tomatoes. City dwellers miss the luscious flavor 
of these products because it evaporates before reaching 
them. They live on a dull, commonplace level where food 
is a necessity but not a delight; many farmers live there, 
too, but that is the fault of the farmer. Not all farmers 
are good farmers; only a few have the necessary qualities 
of mind and heart; not a few are lazy, or shiftless, or 
vicious; but the great majority are at least kind-hearted: 
they have not acquired the hard-heartedness and indif¬ 
ference of the city dweller. This is natural enough, for 
they are better nourished and, therefore, more normal. 


The farmer's rife 


3 


Most farmers do not realize these things; the lack of ex¬ 
citement, the quiet, the ever-recurring round of duties 
wearies them; they long for the theatres and moving pic¬ 
tures of the cities; they crowd into the small villages for 
more companionship and fewer chores, and lead a dismal, 
disappointed life there. 





CHAPTER II 

Our Farm 

T was called Cedar Valley Farm 
before we bought it, and as the name 
seemed appropriate, we made no 
change. It lies across a deep and 
beautiful valley. A small stream fed 
by countless rills, which in turn are fed 

by springs in the hills runs through the center. The hills 
on both sides are covered with trees, and only the valley is 
farmed. Underneath the valley and extending up on both 
hills, the valley is underlaid with limestone (dolomite) 
rock. On the summits and sides of the hills which it once 
covered this rock has disappeared. The underlying syenite 
rock on the hills has also decayed, and much of the finer 
debris has washed away, leaving many rocks protruding 
above the surface. These rocks are made up of feldspar, 
quartz, hornblende and other minerals. Among them grow 
trees of many varieties and all sizes. There are many 
cedar trees (Juniperus Virginiana) which give the valley 
its name. There are oaks and hickories, the swamp maple, 
dogwood, red mulberry, sassafras, an occasional beech 
and, soaring over all, the lofty tulip tree. Underneath 
grow strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, the spice 
bush and many ferns, mushrooms and mosses. There 
are worms of many sorts in the earth and on the trees; 




OUR FARM 


5 


birds flit in the branches; the calls of the bob-white and 
turtle-dove are common, and the warning cluck of the 
cock-pheasant startles us as we wander through the woods. 
There are squirrels and rabbits, weasels, skunks, mink, 
foxes, woodchucks and an occasional deer. 

Sometimes we see a blacksnake or garter 
snake; occasionally a sneaking copperhead 
is found, and there are many turtles. With 
all these plants and animals to interest us 
how is it possible to think the farm a dull 
place? 

There are nearly 240 acres in all, and 
the farm is composed of fifteen different 
tracts, each with a history of its own. One 
of the tracts has what remains of an old 
graveyard, where a few weathered, upright 
or leaning stones with no names cut on them 
are all that remain to show that some un¬ 
known farmers here found rest. Near by are two aban¬ 
doned lime kilns, and all around are holes, showing that a 
search was made for good stone, probably in vain. There 
were once mines of iron ore in the hills, to which mud 
banks, resulting from the ore washing, and fallen-in shafts 
bear witness. 

When we bought the farm it was being cultivated by 
a tenant. The farm land only, about 80 acres, was in- 





6 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


eluded in the lease. The rest of the original 147 acres 
consisted of woodland and was not let. The deed for this 
147 acres mentioned six tracts composing it. We after¬ 
wards bought nine additional tracts of 93 acres in all, all 
woodland. 

After going over the original tract, Anna and I con¬ 
cluded to clear some of the unleased territory and build 
there. We figured that we could clear 20 acres on a 
plateau above the abandoned lime kilns and build our 
house there, with room enough for an orchard and large 
garden. The men were each to have their own home 
(there are two tenant houses on the place, each with a 
garden) and these men were to work in the garden in 
summer and in the woods in winter. 










CHAPTER III 


First Efforts 


ERY few trees in our forest were fit for cutting. 

Most of the timber had been cut off some thirty years 
before. Some few chestnut trees had been saved for the 
sake of the fruit they bore; but these and the young chest¬ 
nuts had been killed by the blight. The forest was full of 
half-grown, nearly or half-dead chestnuts, whose dead 
tops, sticking above the other trees, gave a ragged and 
ugly edge to the sky. Our first efforts were directed to 
cutting out this dead timber. Most of it was cut and hauled 
out the first winter of 1918-19. In 1919-20 we managed, 
in spite of a deep snow, to clear about three acres, and in 
1920-21 we cleared off a few remaining trees of the 
home patch and began clearing off dead chestnut from 
the flank of Morgan’s hill. Altogether I calculate that 
about 30 acres of the woodland has thus been cleared of 
dead trees, but about 70 acres remain to be weeded out. 
The forestry that prevailed here before we bought the 
farm has certainly been of a very peculiar kind. It will 
take years to straighten it out and still more years to re¬ 
move the crooked trees and crush and sell the surplus 
rock. A considerable part of the home lot had been 
cleared and used as a pasture some twenty years before, 
but had grown up with cedars, young maple, ash, poison 


8 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAFFFY 


ivy and a few apple trees. We cut out the rubbish, grafted 
the apple trees and blew out the rocks with 60 per cent 
dynamite. There were two sink holes which filled with 
water in wet weather, covered with over a foot of black 
soil which had washed into them. We determined to grade 
the territory for the house and grounds, and used the 
muck for topping the garden. 

The second year we raised a few vegetables in this 
garden patch; the third we dug and planted, in addition, 
a small patch on a slope below where the house is to stand, 
and this year we have cleared off stone and planted the 
rest of about two acres. No manure except a little wood 
ashes was available, but during the second spring I was 
fortunate in finding a man in Easton who had had trouble 
in getting his manure box cleaned at regular intervals 
and he promised to give me all the sawdust manure 
from his eight horses provided I kept the box clean. 
Altogether, up to the present time, I have taken away over 
fifty good two-ton truck loads from his place. Sawdust 
manure is supposed to be poor stuff by most farmers, but it 
has already put my soil into much better heart, and, with 
the addition of some limestone and wood ashes, will, I 
hope, not make the soil sour. 

As we cut out the chestnuts many bare spots were 
left behind, and we determined to plant these to forest. 


first efforts 


9 


We were fortunate in numbering Mr. Gifford Pinchot 
among our friends, and were aware, through having read 
his books, of the necessity of planting as we cut. In order 
to make no mistake, I wrote to the State Forestry Bureau, 
and Mr. Irving Williams, Assistant State Forester, came 
to see me. Together we visited the tract and Mr. Williams 
told me what to do and how to do it. He explained that I 
could get the trees gratis from the state nursery, and this 
I proceeded to do. We have now planted 10,000 young 
trees in all; 2,000 in 1919, 5,200 in 1920 and 2,800 in 1921. 
In 1922 I made application too late to get any trees. 
Those planted on the southern slope are mostly spruce, 
while those on the northern exposure are almost all white 
pine with a few western pine. We plant them with a dib¬ 
ber in April, and the cost, as nearly as we can tell, was 
about $37.00. This includes labor, freight, packing and 
all other charges. When the farmer does the work of 
planting himself and there is thus no labor charge the 
cost should not exceed $1.50 per thousand. We put them 
in six feet apart but we use no measure. Sometimes 
the men get careless and put them in too closely then we 
put a new man on the job. Indeed forestry of any kind re¬ 
quires careful men, and any others are too expensive. 
During the first year we cut and sold $25.00 worth of 
beanpoles, the second year $55.00 and the third year 
$48.00. These were mostly dogwood and sassafras. We 


10 


OUR FARM IN CE)DAR VARUFY 


carefully avoid cutting out straight oak, hickory and 
tulip trees. In all we have cut and sold $994.00 worth of 
firewood and posts in these three years. 

Next to the chestnut, which can be grown no longer, 
the honey locust is, perhaps, the best tree for fence posts. 
We have, therefore, planted many beans of the honey lo¬ 
cust in the vacant forest spaces. Much remains to be done 
in the forest. There is much crooked timber, fit only for 
firewood, to be removed, and too much spicewood and 
other rubbish remains. There are many roads to be cut 
and many rocks to be removed before our forest is in 
proper order. This will furnish work for many winters 
to come. There were large piles of brush left after carry¬ 
ing off the firewood and the cedar poles. These were 
burned, and in the ashes we planted cucumbers, squashes 
kohl rabi and sweet potatoes. The soil seems, however, 
to respond to good treatment. On the home lot, where 
our own house, my laboratory, library and the out-build¬ 
ings are to stand, we built a cheap wooden structure to 
house the tools, serve as a shop, and as a place to store 
and cut the firewood under cover. In this woodshed we 
installed a gasolene engine and saw. To haul the wood 
to town and bring back manure and cinders for the roads 
I bought a two-ton truck. This truck was expensive, and 
became the immediate object of the criticism of my neigh- 


first efforts 


it 


bors. As no two criticisms agreed, I can so far afford to 
smile, for it has done a lot of work at moderate cost. 

The second year we raised cabbage, tomatoes and 
some celery. We also planted a few strawberries, rasp¬ 
berries, currants and gooseberries, which we have added 
to each year. The next year we raised in addition peas, 
beans, potatoes and corn on the increased area, and this 
year we have planted and harvested a much larger acre¬ 
age of these, and in addition peanuts, pumpkins, salsify 
and lettuce. Each year we expect to try something new, 
for farming, like all other trades, should have a proper 
proportion of experimental work. Last year we dis¬ 
covered, to our great surprise, that we could raise a good 
crop of peanuts with little manure or care. 

I have found that peas and beans grow well on this 
soil. This is not the outcome of theory but of repeated 
trials. The cause is perhaps the abundance of clay in the 
soil, the northern exposure, for peas like a cool climate, 
and the fact that the water-table lies near the surface, 
enabling the plants to get a plentiful supply of water. 
After the peas are off we plant an abundant supply of 
celery to be consumed all winter. The canning and dry¬ 
ing of our winter store last year was a severe strain on 
our kitchen and so we have built a special kitchen at the 
farm where this work can all be done; most of it by the 


12 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


men. This kitchen is at the west end of the wood shed, 
which is 80 feet long and 15 feet wide, with seven feet at 
the east end for a tool house and ten feet at the west end 
for the kitchen. 

I was the oldest of my father’s children. When I 
was six years old, my father, who was a lawyer in a 
country town, bought a farm, built a house, and we lived 
there until his death. The house was built on a sandy 
ridge; there was a large garden and orchard and we had 
all the fruit and vegetables any one need desire. I re¬ 
member especially the watermelons. They were not 
large, but there were plenty of them. We put them in 
the cellar to cool. On a hot day we helped ourselves. 
How good they were ! I did not know how well off I had 
been until we moved away and I began to eat the wilted 
stuff of the city markets. My mother had a flower garden 
which I was compelled to dig. How I hated that flower 
garden! After I was married we moved into a house on 
the college campus. There were trees but no flowers. One 
day a friend sent us some flowers and they were placed on 
the sideboard. When I came in and saw them I said to my¬ 
self : “that is what I have been missing, we must have 
some flowers.” Ever since then we have had flowers — 
Holland bulbs and pansies in the early spring, then 
paeonies, flags and roses, with asters, gladiolus and 


first efforts 


13 


chrysanthemums later on. This year I added two rows 
of sweet peas. Only a few farmers have flowers, but 
all may have those mentioned with a hundred other hardy 
kinds, such as lilacs, poppies, snowballs, wisteria, weigelia 
and the like, with little trouble and expense. These are 
the beautifiers, — just as much a part of a full life as a 
loaf of bread. They pay, too. Near the city a lilac hedge 
will raise a very profitable crop year after year. 


CHAPTER IV 

One Saturday 

NE Saturday Anna and our four chil¬ 
dren had gone away in her car to visit 
some relatives and I was left at home 
alone. After lunch I started for the 
farm in my Franklin runabout, which 
will comfortably seat three people if 
they are not too large. It was a beauti¬ 
ful summer day; the sun was half-hidden by fleecy clouds 
and there was just enough breeze. It had rained enough to 
lay the dust the day before but not enough to make the 
roads muddy. The trees were green; the potato fields 
were covered with purple blossoms; the ripening wheat 
bent in waves as the breeze passed over it; the corn had 
the deep green of perfect health; all nature rejoiced, so 
did I. This is too good a day for the house, I thought, 
but who will go with me? for I do not like to ride alone. 
At the farm two of the girls offered to go; they had few 
auto rides and were glad to go. 

We drove up Cedar Valley until we reached the Old 
Durham road. In the old days this was an important 
artery of travel. It led from Durham, Bucks County, to 
Easton, and was an extension of the road from Center¬ 
ville (now Buckingham) on the old York road to the iron 
furnace at Durham. We know that some of the iron 





ONE SATURDAY 


15 


from this furnace was sent to Philadelphia on Durham 
boats. Probably much of it was also distributed as cast- 
iron kettles, stove plates and the like, by wagon over the 
Durham road. 

This road follows the summit of the hills for the 
most part, crossing the valleys where it must by heavy 
grades. It is not an easy road to travel but one giving 
many beautiful views of the surrounding rugged country. 
On the right as we joined it rose the Hexenkopf or 
Witches Head, the highest point in the country round. 
Here in the olden days of fable the witches boiled their 
caldron surrounded with lurid flames, concocting their 
horrid broth of toad, cockroach, June bug, copperhead 
and rattlesnake. The Hexenkopf rises to a height of 
1,030 feet, while Seiler’s hill, which bounds Cedar Valley 
on the south, only reaches 730 feet and Morgan’s hill, on 
the north, 820 feet. From the old sand quarry where 
the roads meet we dropped down hill, down, down, until 
we were in the wide South Valley, and then across this, 
past fertile fields and over sparkling brooks bubbling 
alongside. About a mile from the intersection the Dur¬ 
ham road turns to the left while we traveled straight 
ahead across the valley toward Springtown. 

Above Springtown the hills rise to a height of 910 
feet and the road into the valley is very steep. From 
top to bottom the drop must be nearly 600 feet. The view 


9 

1 6 OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARRFY 

is glorious. How the brakes scream and smoke as we 
drop down and how creepy we feel as we turn the sharp 
corners and hang for an instant over empty space; then a 
sigh of relief as we slip along the valley past cherry trees 
with blushing fruit and peach orchards. At the foot of 
the hill stands a mill, and near it a church, and further on 
the Quakertown and Durham Railroad, now abandoned, 
crosses the carriage road just over the bridge across the 
stream. 

As the church comes into view, memories of my 
school days at Doylestown come back. This must be 
Oliver Melchior’s church. He was my schoolmate there. 
A tall boy, older than most of us> with large, deep-set, 
earnest eyes and straight black hair. He was then study¬ 
ing for the ministry, and he became the advocate and 
protector of a little boy whom no one else loved and all 
the boys persecuted. This boy became his faithful slave. 
It was a pretty picture. I should like to see Oliver again. 

It is time to turn home. So we turn to the left, cross 
the valley and the stream and follow the road to the east. 
A little further on an automobile blocks the way and I 
get out to reconnoiter: an ice-cream wagon has stopped 
and the auto passengers are buying ice-cream cones. I 
buy some too. As I am getting the cones the door of a 
house on our left opens, and who comes out? Who but 
Oliver Melchoir! He recognizes me, but calls me by my 


ONE: SATURDAY 


17 

cousin’s name—it has been a long time since we met. 
We are glad to meet. He brings his wife out to meet the 
girls. We buy more ice-cream and eat it in his house. 
He is soon to have a celebration to commemorate his long 
service in one spot. He has christened, married and 
buried the people for many miles around. He tells me 
about his wonderful son and asks about my children. We 
pass a happy half-hour together and then go on our way. 
Now to Durham, then we climb the hills around old Dur¬ 
ham church and so back home. 


CHAPTER V 


The Rocks of Cedar Valley 


''p HERE are many things about the structure of this 
world of ours which still remain unsettled. The speci¬ 
fic gravity of our rocks and the soil covering them is near 
2.5, that is they are two and one-half times as heavy as 
the same bulk of water. But it is known that the specific 
gravity of the earth as a whole is about 5.33 or more than 
twice that of the portion known to us. This greater spe¬ 
cific gravity may be due to enormous pressures, »or it may 
be due to the presence of heavy metals far below the 
surface. 

Perhaps the earth at one time was molten, and the 
fiery mass, beneath an atmosphere of mixed steam and 
gas surged with heavy tides. The age of the earth, since 
solid rocks formed on the surface is still unsettled, ex¬ 
cept that we must believe it to be at least several hundred 
million years old. Rayliegh and Jeffries think it likely 
that, say 2,000,000,000 years have elapsed since the earth 
became habitable, though no two of those interested agree 
perfectly (see Nature, Oct. 13, 1921). But let us not 
dispute over trifles; we will put it at 2,000,000,000. 
Whether our oldest rocks were once fluid or whether 
most of the granites and gneisses are merely sediments 
altered beyond recognition by heat and pressure is also 
uncertain, but it is pretty certain, at any rate, that the 


THE) ROCKS OR CEDAR VARREY 


19 


rocks on Seiler’s hill are very old, and that the dolomite 
which underlies the valley is one of the oldest sedimentary 
rocks known to us. So far as I know no complete analy¬ 
sis of this limestone has been reported. I found in a 
rough preliminary test that the percentage of magnesia 
is high, and this is characteristic of most of the ordovician 
limestone of this part of the country. Frank Firmstone 
said that one of the advantages of our stone was that it 
contained a high percentage of magnesia and the conse¬ 
quence was that in the iron blast furnace a mixture of 
lime and magnesia silicates was produced which fused at 
a lower temperature than either of the constituents. In 
Bulletin 127 of the Pennsylvania Station my friend Wil¬ 
liam Frear has collected analyses of the limestone rock 
from different parts of Pennsylvania from which it ap¬ 
pears that most of our stone is ordovician and that as a 
rule the magnesia content is high. Three analyses are 
reported from Northampton County; one from Chain 
Dam (just above Easton on the Lehigh river) with 38.72 
magnesium carbonate, one from Easton Lime Co. (just 
above Easton on the Bushkill) with 41.31 magnesium 
carbonate and one from Redington (near Chain Dam) 
with only 4.11 per cent. This limestone in the New 
Jersey Report of the State Geologist for 1908 is called 
Kittatinny, magnesian or blue gray limestone. The same 
Report contains a chapter showing polished surfaces of 


20 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARRFY 


granite from that state, exactly similar in appearance to 
that found on Seiler’s hill. On the far side of Seiler’s 
hill is an old quarry showing very large exposures of light 
colored granite of very good texture and almost free from 
joints. I have no doubt that it will be possible to obtain 
both granite and limestone of excellent quality for build¬ 
ing purposes, and I know from actual trial that the lime 
from the Easton Lime Company’s kilns makes unusually 
strong mortar. 

We have already blown many of the granite boulders 
to pieces with dynamite. As we proceed further in clear¬ 
ing the land we shall be able to determine more accurately 
their texture, but we know already that many of the field 
stone are both hard and tough. This granite or syenite 
appears to contain hornblende, quartz and feldspar with 
very little mica, but different pieces vary considerably in 
the fracture when broken. It will probably be easy to 
secure a great variety of color and texture at will. The 
rock appears to contain enough iron to give it a dark color 
when weathered, but it does not look rusty. In trying to 
plot the surveys described in the old deeds I find, of 
course, many blunders committed by the copyists, but 
after these have been traced and eliminated discrepancies 
remain in the compass surveys which can only be ac¬ 
counted for in two ways: either they are very poor sur¬ 
veys or there are masses of iron ore below the surface to 


the: rocks or ce:dar varlry 


21 


attract the needle. That there are iron deposits is certain, 
for many thousand tons of brown hematite have been 
taken from this hill, and there are many traces of aban¬ 
doned mines; but are there only brown ore deposits or do 
lenses of magnetite exist within the granite masses? This 
appears unlikely, for if so grains of magnetite would 
probably occur in the rock and as this decays these grains 
would be liberated and would be found in the sand. This 
very thing has happened in the granite near Stewartsville, 
New Jersey, where by washing the sand it is possible to 
concentrate and separate the magnetite sand with ease. 
On the other hand it is possible that the iron has been 
dissolved by carbonated water as fast as it was liberated 
from the rock. The granite appears to be free from 
calcite but the soil contains lime in some form, for the 
leached ashes from the dead chestnut effervesce vigorously 
with an acid. I have no doubt that the soil contains suffi¬ 
cient potash from the decay of the feldspar but I think 
likely it is deficient in phosphorus, I am inclined to think 
most of the brown hematite lies at or near the contact of 
the granite and limestone. If this be true the point of 
contact lies about one-third the distance up the hillside, 
for here there are abandoned mine openings where ore 
has been taken out. A short distance above this point 
springs break out along the hillside. These have small 
volume, are evidently shallow, since the water grows 


22 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VARREY 


warm and soon dries up in summer. It seems probable 
that the soil covering on the upper slope of Seiler’s hill, 
overlying the granite is rather shallow. There appears 
to be an underground seepage of water below the surface 
at very little depth of the north slope of this hill, for 
there are many marshy spots over it in the spring, and at 
the wood shed water can be found at a depth of about six 
feet below the surface during nearly the whole year. 

The land on the plateau I have been clearing is very 
infertile for some reason. Anderson tells me it has been 
pastured as long as he can remember. It responds to 
manure and cultivation, however, as can be seen already. 
As soon as I reach the parts of the surface which cannot, 
because of the immense deposits of stone, ever have been 
cultivated, I shall be able to determine whether the soil is 
naturally poor or whether it has been “skinned.” 

In several places near the old lime kilns the limestone 
is exposed. There are no large openings, and unless stone 
was hauled from a distance no great quantity of lime 
could have been burned here. There are many lumps of 
partly burned or overburned lime near the kilns which 
looks as if the stone may be siliceous. This is corroborated 
by the fact that there are holes in many places in the 
vicinity, evidently dug in hunting for good stone. 

Very little lime appears to be used by the farmers 
now as compared with my boyhood days. In the Buck- 


THE ROCKS OF CEDAR VAEEEY 


23 


ingham valley then there were many kilns smoking and 
the quarries are large and deep. Now the kilns are cold 
and falling to decay everywhere. Perhaps the farmers 
used too much lime then and too little now. Lime is 
a necessary constituent of soils, and the ground water is 
constantly dissolving and removing this lime so that it 
must be constantly renewed. But the form in which it is 
applied is important. Some rocks contain lime as silicate. 
This partly passes into the soil as the rocks decay and 
may, except for neutralizing the soil acidity, furnish lime 
enough for the plant needs. Frear is of the opinion that 
when caustic lime is applied part of it combines with the 
silica in the soil and is retained as silicate. 

The best way to apply lime has been the subject of 
much discussion. The old method of applying caustic 
lime only has been condemned and defended. It was 
formerly supposed that caustic lime burns out humus but 
Frear thinks that either caustic or carbonate promotes 
bacterial activity which in turn destroys humus and that 
there is little or no difference. One hundred parts of 
limestone when pure contain 56 parts caustic lime. The 
actual cost of the lime is, therefore, probably greater 
as ground limestone when everything is taken into ac¬ 
count. Since magnesia as well as lime is needed dolomite 
stone ought to be better than pure calcite or oyster shells. 
The actual cost of lime to the farmer, as I shall attempt to 


24 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAUUEY 


show later on is excessive. In order to get it on living 
terms he must make it himself. This is true of many 
other supplies also. The farmer, above all others, has 
been the victim of the middleman; he is skinned both 
coming and going. If he is to be more prosperous he 
must give more attention to his buying and selling. 

Too much lime appears to be nearly as bad as too 
little for clay soils especially. If too much is applied the 
soil takes on more and more fully the color of the clay, 
white or yellow. This is because the humus is used up 
too rapidly; and humus is especially valuable for clay 
soils as it corrects the tendency to bake. I am fast in¬ 
clining to the belief that for such soils sawdust is a de¬ 
sirable humus generator when no better form of organic 
material is available. Such material furnishes carbonic 
acid also in abundance, and I am inclined to think that 
the two greatest needs for all crops are a plentiful supply 
of carbonic acid and of water, the second being the 
more important. The difference of most import between 
our farming and that in the far east, as I shall show later 
on, is that they water their crops better and use more 
compost. 

About 300 feet up the side of Seiler’s hill a series of 
hillocks and depressions mark the site of an attempt to 
mine iron ore. I asked Charlie Walters to-day who dug 
them? and he answered, brothers by the name of S-. 



THE ROCKS OK CEDAR VAREEY 


25 


“Did they strike ore?” 

“Oh yes, and water!” 

“Why didn’t they take the ore out?” 

“Because they liked whiskey better than water.” 

This brown ore, mostly limonite, was hauled to the 
furnaces at Glendon and Durham and made into foundry 
pig iron. At that time it was supposed to be the only 
ore from which good foundry pig could be made. This 
was afterwards found to be incorrect. When the rich 
Michigan and Minnesota ores were discovered, mining 
and smelting these ores became unprofitable and the 
furnaces and mines were abandoned. This ore contains 
nearly 40 per cent metallic iron and sometimes manga¬ 
nese. As the richer ores disappear these brown ores will 
again be needed. 


CHAPTER VI 

The Soil of Cedar Valley 

O far as I have examined it the soil 
seems to be a sandy clay. It does not 
bake so hard as some of the clays I 
have seen but must be properly treated 
if this is to be entirely avoided, and I 
believe more humus will improve it in 
this respect. The only available ma¬ 
terial for this is horse manure with shavings litter. This 
may tend to make sour soil if it is not watched. The sub¬ 
soil is very hard and impervious. Two summers ago, soon 
after we bought the farm, no rain fell for a month and the 
spring on Seiler’s hill dried up. I had Israel dig out a basin 
to collect the water just below where it flows from under 
the rock. As we went down the bottom grew more and 
more dense and finally a pick was needed. We dug it out 
to a depth of three feet but built no wall. Two years 
later the hole then made preserves its shape perfectly and 
has not fallen in although we carry water from it nearly 
every day. Further down the hill where we are grading, 
the soil and subsoil seem to be of much the same char¬ 
acter. We find, however, if we dig down to the hardpan 
and expose this to the rain it softens immensely and the 
digging is much easier. When> enough manure is used and 
the soil is properly stirred it will raise good crops of all 





the son, of cedar vareEy 


27 


the pea and bean family. When first broken the old 
pasture land raised poor crops even when manured. It 
seems to be necessary to give the manure time to de¬ 
compose for at least a year before much effect can be 
noticed. I have observed the same thing in other places, 
but I have wondered whether part of the reason was not 
due to the lack of a sufficiently intimate mixing of soil 
and manure the first year. Anyone who has carefully 
watched the operations of plowing and harrowing will 
agree that the mixing part of the operation is very im¬ 
perfect and confined to the upper three or four inches at 
best. I notice by the Journal of the Franklin Institute 
that a prize has been awarded to Thomas Willing Hicks 
of Minneapolis for the invention of a “Once Over Tiller” 
which consists of a plow supplied also with a vertical axis 
upon which steel cutting blades are fixed. These rotate 
at high speed and the sod or earth being thrown against 
them it is finely pulverized. There can be no doubt 
whatever that very thorough pulverizing and mixing of 
the soil greatly helps to make a crop. The first year I 
partly filled a swamp on the plateau by rolling in stones, 
upon which clay and then some black soil from the swamp 
were placed. I had no manure but we raised some 
wonderful cabbages. I believe this was due to the very 
thorough mixing in depth which the soil received. With 
this in view I shall try subsoil plowing as soon as I am 


28 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


able to undertake it. I shall also try collecting and using 
domestic coal ashes to add to the soil to promote porosity 
which is very important. This is especially necessary 
while the plants are young and tender. Unless the young 
plant can strike its roots deep it fails to get food promptly 
and grows puny. 

Several years ago I made a new garden on the side 
of College Hill. The hillside was steep, so I built a wall 
above and one below and made my garden as a terrace. 
But there was not enough soil. In desperation, I finally 
collected some weeds, sticks and other rubbish and 
covered them with coal ashes. On the ashes I planted 
tomatoes. There was enough rain and the tomatoes 
grew luxuriantly; in fact, I never saw such tomatoes 
before. This gave me my first idea of the importance of 
porosity in soils. 

Moles are very plentiful and their burrows furrow 
the soil in all directions; there are several ground hog 
burrows among the trees in the grove around the lime 
kilns; but what of it; I must raise enough for all of us 
until I can find means to limit the number of my de¬ 
pendents. Perhaps Anna may need a moleskin muff 
some day and the rest of us may like stewed ground hog; 
we will keep these friends until we need them. 

The soil plows easily and is easily worked when it 
has the right amount of moisture. The men have been 


the SOU, OF CEDAR VAEEEY 


2 9 


told to take out every stone, big and little, so that we may 
not be constantly irritated as we work the soil. Working 
soil full of stones is not fit work even for a preacher’s 
son. 

In his book “On The Formation of Vegetable Mould 
Through the Action of Worms” Charles Darwin has 
shown that worms carry fine soil to the surface and de¬ 
posit is as castings, gradually burying the stones. He also 
shows that such castings rapidly wash down hill. Jethro 
Tull in a “Treatise on Horse Hoeing” published in 1733 
advances the opinion that the fertility of a soil depends 
upon the amount of fine particles contained in it. We 
should have to modify this in the light of our present 
knowledge; but certainly such fine earth as make up the 
worm castings must not be allowed to wash away. 

In thinking over all these matters as they apply to 
Cedar Valley we have, therefore, concluded that to get 
and keep the land in good condition it will be necessary: 

(1) To terrace the land where it slopes much so 
that the fine soil may not wash away. 

(2) To rip-rap the water channels so as to prevent 
gullying. 

(3) To add such material to the soil as will make 
it fertile and porous. 

(4) To remove all stones so that the soil may be 
cheaply worked. 


30 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


(5) To provide an adequate supply of water for 
tideing the soil over periods of drouth. This is quite as 
necessary as either of the others. Fortunately nature has 
provided sufficient water at a higher level, but storage 
facilities do not as yet exist. 

This is a heavy engineering task and time alone will 
tell whether it can be made to pay. 

The formation of soil is a very interesting study. 
We know of course that soils have been formed in some 
way from the underlying rock, but how? 

Anyone with half an eye can see the process going 
on in our rivers and smaller streams continually. The 
valleys along such streams are full of sand, evidently 
formed from the grinding action of the rocks as they roll 
over one another in flood time. Several years ago I saw 
a pebble of coal which had been fished out of the river 
at Lambertville. It had rolled all the way from Mauch 
Chunk, continually wearing off its edges, until it was a 
perfect sphere. The rivers are full of cobble stones, 
which were once used to pave the streets, produced in the 
same way. The fragments produced are themselves 
rounded in the very same way and then the water cur¬ 
rents sort the grains over and over and over again, finally 
depositing them in a more quiet stretch, behind some island 
or in the eddy behind a bend, leaving particles of the 
same size carefully sorted, together. As the river cuts 


THE SOIL OE CEDAR VAEEEY 


31 


deeper and the bed sinks these deposits of sand are 
left stranded above even high water mark, forming the 
material for a garden, watermelon or sweet potato patch. 
At the mouths of our rivers we have the muddy water 
spreading out over a great space constantly dropping its 
load into the depths below, some day to reappear as dry 
land, perhaps as a fertile soil, as the earth’s crust lifts 
itself again above the water’s level. 

As I rode slowly up the steep railway grades from 
Visp to Zermatt, Switzerland, I noticed a man damming 
the milky current of the little stream and turning it over 
a patch of ground lying at a little lower level. When I 
came to look into this I discovered that the water was 

full of particles of finely ground rock which the peasant 
was settling out over a stony patch to give more soil. 
The milky water came from under the melting ice of the 
glacier which had frozen fast to the loose stones dragging 
them down over the bed rock, grinding both to powder. 
At another place, in the valley of the Aar, a stream of 
water from the glacier, charged with this ground rock, 
had passed swiftly over a bed of soft rock carving a 
channel through it as if cut by a sand blast. 

On the sea shore when the waves thunder through 
the narrow channels and dash in fury against the frown¬ 
ing cliffs the stones from the ocean bed are caught up 


32 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARUFY 


and hurled with dreadful violence against the beetling 
rocks, grinding both to powder; and the sand is ground 
again, as was the sand by the river side. 

Presently the wind goes down and the sand dries. 
Shortly the wind rises again and the dry sand is driven 
before the blast high upon the shore forming the dunes 
along the Holland coast or the hills of Bermuda, 300 feet 
high. In our western deserts the wind picks up the sand 
grains and drives them violently against the rocks cutting 
them rapidly. Where the under parts are softest giant 
mushrooms stand against the sky until another blast cuts 
the stem clean off and they fall. 

These are all grinding processes, and they exist and 
have been at work constantly, wearing down the hardest 
rock. But there are other agencies at work not less 
potent and equally persistent. If we break a stone and 
examine the fracture, we shall find that the surface por¬ 
tion is softer and more friable than the inner portion. 
An examination of stone quarries shows very clearly that 
the rock has altered. As the quarrymen get deeper into 
the rock it becomes, as a rule, freer from flaws and less 
broken. Near the surface, the rock has crumbled into 
fine pieces or has been entirely converted into soil. A 
little further down the rock has been broken into small 
pieces mixed with soil. If these pieces of rock are broken 
they show a dull fracture and are easily broken. Further 



the soie of cedar VAEEEY 


33 


down decay is not so pronounced, and at the depth of 20 
to 100 feet the rock is sound and hard. In most rock, 
however, even at great depth, many seams and cracks 
occur, due to faulting of the earth’s crust which furnish 
starting points for future decay. 

The decay of the rock masses and their conversion 
into soil is caused by a number of agencies, and it is 
difficult to gauge with any great accuracy the relative im¬ 
portance of each. Most of them act very slowly, and 
centuries only are sufficient to bring about the change in 
some instances on record. Thus, lava streams, the date 
of whose ejection is known, have gradually decayed until 
sufficient soil had formed for the planting of vineyards. 
It has been found that there is a great difference in the 
rapidity of this decay in different lavas. ‘‘Five hundred 
years have not sufficed to clothe with green the still naked 
surface of the Catanian lava of 1381; while some of the 
lavas of the present century have long given footing to 
bunches of furze. Some of the lavas of Auvergne, which 
certainly flowed in time anterior to those of history are 
still singularly bare and rugged. Yet, on the whole, 
where lava is directly exposed to the atmosphere, 
without receiving protection from occasional showers 
of volcanic ash, or being liable to be washed bare 
by heavy torrents of rain, its surface decays suffi¬ 
ciently in a few years to afford soil for a few plants in 


34 


OUR farm in cedar vaixey 


the crevices. When these have taken root they help to 
increase the disintegration. At last, as a more or less 
continuous covering of vegetation spreads over the rock, 
the traces of its volcanic origin one by one fade away 
from its surface.” (A. Geike, Article “Geology,” En¬ 
cyclopedia Brit., 9th ed., 1879). 

One of the most active factors in the surface decay 
of rocks is to be found in the lichens which so often cover 
the entire exposed surface. An examination of these 
organisms has revealed the astonishing fact that we have 
in them not one but two organisms mutually interdepen¬ 
dent. Like man and wife it is not good for either, to live 
alone. These couples consist of a fungus and an alga. 
The function of the alga is to supply sugar or starch 
which it elaborates from the carbon dioxide of the air by 
means of its chlorophyl, while the fungus supplies mineral 
matter from the rock to which it is attached, gathers mois¬ 
ture and perhaps also nitrogen from the atmosphere. 
These couples appear to be able to resist extremes of tem¬ 
perature and drouth to which either alone would succumb. 
On such a bare, rocky surface a fungus or an alga would 
die, but the lichen fastens itself to the rock and persists 
in living through all vicissitudes of dry and wet, cold and 
heat. It lives to an age of at least a century and probably 
of several centuries, and its ash amounts to 10 per cent 
of its weight, which probably comes mostly from the 


the son, op cedar vaeeey 


35 


rock which carries it. The data are uncertain, but there 
seems to be little doubt that the lichens are potent agents 
in rock decay and soil formation. 

That the roots of plants will etch limestone is well 
known. This appears to be caused by carbonic acid. 
When beans are sprouted on polished plates of fine¬ 
grained limestone and the roots covered with wet filter 
paper, channels are formed in the limestone correspond¬ 
ing to the direction of the roots. Dolomite and magnesite 
are etched in the same way. The roots of some fungi 
excrete oxalic acid or acid potassium oxalate. If this 
were to go into solution in water containing a little com¬ 
mon salt, which is frequently present in ground water, a 
much greater etching efifect would surely result. The 
same thing would result if the water should contain salt¬ 
peter, and it often does. 

After the higher plants once begin to grow in the 
thin rock covering produced by the lichens, decay goes on 
more rapidly and at a gradually increasing rate. As soil 
accumulates the soil solution circulates over the surface, 
and, through the channels that have formed. Then the 
mineral metamorphoses common to the minerals forming 
the rocks set in, and slowly but surely transform the 
fragments into soil. Some of these transformations oc¬ 
cur much more easily and rapidly than others. Feldspar, 


36 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAFFFY 


for example, is quite rapidly altered to clay, potassium 
carbonate and silica by the soil solution; while quartz 
fragments change and dissolve very, very slowly. 

At the same time the formation of an essential con¬ 
stituent of most soils the so-called “humus,” begins. In 
a general way humus consists of the partly decayed roots 
which have penetrated the soil and of the stalks which 
have perished, fallen upon the surface and decayed there. 
There can be little doubt that the word humus stands 
for not one but many substances, and that there are also 
many varieties of humus according to the material from 
which it has formed and the conditions under which it 
has decayed. It does not seem reasonable to expect that 
we should get the same sort of humus from decaying pine 
which contains much resin, as from the oak or chestnut 
which contains none. Nor does it seem probable that 
decayed apple pomace should yield the same material as 
cow dung. On the other hand we know that when this 
decay occurs under water peat is formed, while where 
the soil is aerated a different substance results. I am not, 
therefore, in entire harmony with King when he says: 
“Beds of peat and the black muck soils are the best ex¬ 
amples of what is meant by humus, and it is excessively 
abundant in these places because the soil is close in 
texture and so full of water that the microscopic forms 
of life which feed upon this dead matter are unable to 


the: SOIIv of ce;dar VAFFFY 


37 


. get the necessary oxygen to thrive in it. We should 
think of humus as the food of microscopic life in the 
soil, and of the waste products of this microscopic life as 
a very essential part of the food of higher plants.” When 
we are able to separate and identify the constituents of 
humus I believe we shall find very few substances which 
are common to all varieties of humus. This material 
has been the subject of much study and experiment but 
such studies have so far given us a very poor idea of 
its constitution. 

It is no doubt true that humus serves as food for 
many of the lower forms of life, and especially of those 
forms which are destitute of chlorophyl. There is no 
doubt that plants of the higher orders can grow and 
flourish in soil destitute of humus. Nevertheless it is a 
valuable constituent of fertile soils. A considerable part 
of its value appears to be mechanical. It is especially 
valuable in soils which contain an excess of clay, pre¬ 
venting baking. Because it is undergoing continuous 
oxidation with the production of carbonic acid it assists in 
the disintegration of the soil minerals; it makes the soil 
lighter giving to it that porosity known as “tilth.” It 
helps in the absorption of heat by giving its black color 
to the soil. The amount in soils varies considerably. 
Perhaps we might say that in ordinary eastern soils 3 


38 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VALLEY 


per cent will be found. In the arid west the humus 
appears to oxidize more rapidly, and some desert soils 
contain scarcely any. 

The great agents in distributing soil have been water 
and ice. I have already shown how water acts. In 
former ages, during the so-called “glacial periods” of 
the geologists, when large glaciers covered a great part 
of the northern hemisphere the ice not only ground and 
scored the rock, but it also carried with it vast masses of 
stone and soil to be deposited as terminal moraines; it 
gouged out masses of earth and rock, forming the glacial 
lakes, and it scraped the soil from the surface of ridges 
and scored the exposed rock with deep glacial scratches 
as in Central Park, New York City, or with deep grooves 
as in the soft rock of Kelley’s Island near Cleveland, Ohio. 
The melting ice of these ice sheets formed great bodies of 
water which carried the mud far and wide, and as the 
mud dried the heavy winds picked up and carried the fine 
dust to great distances. This dust as it deposited formed 
the stretches of prairie soil made up of very fine particles 
free of stones, the so-called “loess” soils. 

In Cedar Valley we have probably had but little ice 
action and not very much water transportation. Most 
of the soil is no doubt what is known as “residual” 
soil which has formed by gradual rock decay, washing 
away the salts soluble in water, leaving behind the in- 


THE SOIL OF CEDAR VAREEY 


39 


soluble mixture of clay, quartz grains, various other in¬ 
soluble mineral grains and fragments of undecomposed 
rock. 

In riding along the road and watching my neighbors 
at work I have been struck with the number of stones 
they take from the hillsides each year. Harold declares 
that frost brings them to the surface but I am inclined to 
think so much surface is washed away that new stones 
are each year plowed out. 

The level, or nearly level surface of the plateau upon 
which we expect to build lies at an elevation of perhaps 
ioo feet above the cross road which leads to the Dela¬ 
ware. On the northern edge of this plateau overhanging 
this road the lime kilns are located and the limestone 
comes to the surface. Below the limestone outcrop 
towards the road the surface slopes, at first rather 
steeply and then more gently for perhaps 400 feet to the 
road. This gentle slope is enclosed as a separate field 
now being worked by the farmer. Lying over the whole 
surface of this field and also over and upon the lime¬ 
stone outcrop were large boulders of granite. These 
evidently came from the hill above. They had apparently 
worked down in some way across the nearly flat 
plateau and to a considerable distance down the gentle 
slope. One of these boulders lay over the edge of the 
plateau and was of very large size, weighing many tons. 


40 


our Farm in cedar varrey 


Now how did these boulders manage to creep perhaps 
a thousand feet from their original horizontal position 
and deposit themselves over the limestone? For a long 
time this problem puzzled me very much. In the mean¬ 
time, as they were very much in the way we attacked 
them with dynamite and hauled them away. There are 
several ways in which soil might have moved horizon¬ 
tally, but how did the rocks move? I think I have now 
hit on a theory to account for this which may hold water. 

In his famous work on “Tunneling” my friend Dr. 
Henry S. Drinker (p. 773) cites the case of the Miihlchal 
Tunnel on the Brenner Railroad in Switzerland where 
the tube, which had been driven partly in schist and 
partly in surface material began to creep down the moun¬ 
tain side to such an extent that it became necessary to 
sink foundation walls into the rock to prevent further 
slipping. I remember also a remarkable instance that 
came to my notice while in Ireland. I visited a peat bog 
on the Belfast and Norchern Counties Railroad. This was 
in a rather flat country; but the men who were cutting 
peat on the bog assured me that several years before the 
whole bog had slid half a mile from its former position 
and then came to rest. In Ries and Watson’s “Engineer¬ 
ing Geology” several other cases of landslides are cited 
and another case came under my own observation in che 
Simplon in 1902. Here the Rossboden glacier broke 


THE SOIL, OF CEDAR VAEEEY 


41 


loose from its fastenings and slid down into the valley 
with a terrific roar, carrying trees and everything else 
in its path. Not only the trees in its path but those along¬ 
side for some distance were leveled by the wind created 
by the passage of the avalanche of ice, mud, snow, rocks 
and trees. It was a year after the slide had happened 
when I saw it and passed over the debris filling the valley 
by an improvised road which needed constant repairing 
as the ice melted. In this case also the difference of level 
appeared to be quite small, but notwithstanding there 
was every evidence of a terrific disturbance. 

In making excavations in steep hillsides I have often 
noticed evidence of sliding downhill in the stones taken 
out. In the case of the Cedar Valley boulders there may, 
of course, have been landslides, but it does not seem 
necessary to so suppose. The slow creeping motion of 
the clayey surface would, in the course of time, carry 
the surface boulders to a considerable distance. 


CHAPTER VII 

The Trees of Cedar Valley 

Yf that of Woods I frame my song 
Woods unto Princes doo belong 
Yf that of woods I list to sing 
Woods may full well be seeme a King 
Heresbachius, Foure Bookes of Husbandry. 1601. 
HERE are very few conifers in the woods on the 
slopes of the hills. Farther east, on the Carpenter 
farm, are several white pines and hemlocks. These have 
borne cones for years, and many young trees of these 
species are growing near by. So far as I know but one 
pine and only two or three hemlocks are growing on 
Cedar Valley Farm. The lone pine is on the slope of 
Morgan’s hill and is not large enough to bear cones. 
The hemlocks are on Seiler’s hill and one of them has 
been scattering cones for several years so that a number 
of young trees are growing. It is to remedy this defi¬ 
ciency of conifers that we have planted pine and spruce 
to the number of 10,000. About 100 acres remain to 
be planted, and here we shall put many hemlock if we 
can get the young trees. 

From about 30 acres of woodland on Morgan’s 
hill and 100 acres on Seiler’s hill the dead chestnut is yet 
to be cut out, and there are also many crooked and 
other imperfect specimens to be cut out and removed. 


the; trees of cedar vaeeey 


43 


There are many tulip poplars (Liriodendron tulip- 
ifera). Some of these will be ready to cut in a few years. 
They have seeded freely for several years and the open 
spaces are full of young trees. The books say that this 
tree grows best in admixture with others but I have seen 
many groves containing no other species. The long thin 
straight trunks are a delight to the eye. They make 
beautiful lumber, free from knots but too soft for flooring 
and many other uses, and the wood decays when exposed 
to damp. It is a beautiful wood, in much request, com¬ 
manding as high a price as pine. Because it cuts easily 
into thin veneers it is much used for peach baskets. I 
have had several chances to sell the trees, all of which I 
have declined. I shall try to propagate as many of these 
as possible. 

From Forest Circular 93 issued by the U. S. Bureau 
of Forestry in 1907 by my friend Gifford Pinchot, I 
gather the following: It grows rapidly at the rate of 
one to two feet in height and one-tenth to one-fourth 
inch in diameter during the first fifty years of its life; 
after this the rate of growth diminishes. It lives to be 
300 years old and is very resentful of shade and fires. 
The lumbermen speak of yellow and white poplar as two 
distinct species; but the yellow grows on alluvial rich soil, 
while the white grows on gravelly uplands and is harder 
to work. This variety is often called hickory poplar. 


44 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAREEY 


The seed is produced abundantly but only 5 to 10 per 
cent is fertile. Seed is planted thickly as soon as collected 
and sprouts in the spring. One year seedlings are to be 
set out early in spring at six foot distances. It will not 
do to plant this tree in shaded spots, it must be allowed 
plenty of light from the first. 

Next come the oaks. Of these the white oak is 
most desirable as a timber tree. Compared with the 
poplar it is of slow growth. In the olden time the mast 
or fruit borne by trees was an important consideration, 
and Heresbachius tells us that “Among the Mast trees 
and such as serue for Tymber, the first place of right 
belongeth to the Oake.” He tells us that to provide mast 
they should be pruned but if for timber they must not be 
touched. “The Oake agreeth well enough with all 
manner of ground, but prospereth the better in Marshes, 
and watry places: it groweth in almost all grounds, yea 
euen in grauell and sand, except it be ouer dry, it liketh 
woorst a fat ground, neither refuseth it the mountaine.” 
This was written in 1597. In his “Sylva,” 1670, Evelyn 
says: “It is observ’d that Oak will not easily glue to 
other Wood; no, not very well with its own kind; and 

some sorts will never cohere tolerably.Oak 

is excellent for Wheel-spokes, Pinns and Peggs for 
Tyling, etc. Mr. Blith makes Sparrs and small build- 
ing-Timber of Oaks of eleven years growth, which is 



the; tre:e;s of ce;dar vari^y 45 

a prodigious advance, etc., the smallest and streightest 
is best; discover’d by the upright tenor of the Bark, 
as being the most proper for cleaving: The knottiest 
for Water-works, Piles and the like; because ’twill 
drive best, and last longest, the crooked, yet firm, 
for knee-timber in Shipping, Mill-wheels, etc. Were 
planting of these Woods more in use, we should banish 
our hoops of Hasel, etc., for those of good coppet Oak, 
which being made of the younger shoots, are exceeding 
tough and strong: One of them being of Ground-Oak 
will out-last six of the best Ash . . . the Bark is of 
price with the Tanner and Dyer, to whom the very Saw¬ 
dust is of use, as are the Ashes and Lee to cure the 
roapishness of Wine: And ’tis probable the Cups of our 
Acorns would tan Leather as well as the Bark. . . Nor 
must we here omit to mention the Galls, Missletoe, 
Polypod, Agaric (us’d in Antidots) Vuae, Fungus to 
make Tinder ... A Peck of Acorns a day, with a 
little Bran, will make an Hog (’tis said) increase a 
pound-weight per diem for two moneths together. They 
give them also to Oxen mingled with Bran, chop’d or 
broken; otherwise they are apt to sprout and grow in 
their bellies.” 

Both of these descriptions refer to the “British Oak” 
or Quercus Robur, the native English species, which is 
still the most common tree in Britain and in Europe. 


4 


46 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


This resembles the white oak (Quercus alba) of our 
forests, but the limbs are more crooked. The timber of 
the white oak is not quite so durable. The acorns are 
best sown under glass in the fall but I have planted many 
in the woods where they are to grow, using a dibber or 
pointed stick to make the hole and dropping a single 
acorn. I am using this method also for the hickory 
which gives timber even more valuable than oak. 

There are many other varieties of oak growing in 
Cedar Valley—the chestnut oak, the black oak, the red 
oak and the pin oak—none of them so valuable for timber. 
Because of the recent discovery of artificial tanning ma¬ 
terials made from coal tar, chestnut and oak bark are 
likely to be less used for tanning than heretofore. 

Our forest contains many shellbark hickories but 
very few of the mocker nut, pig nut or bitter nut. The 
mocker nut is supposed to give the best timber and makes 
the very best spokes, axe handles, etc. Most of the trees 
now growing bear no fruit, and the conditions are not 
favorable. To do well in this respect the trees must be 
allowed to spread their tops and be better fed than the 
forest trees. I shall plant hickories along the road lead¬ 
ing to the house, so that we may have plenty of nuts to 
eat and plant. Included in these must be some paper- 
shelled pecans. The bitter nut or swamp hickory nut 
yields an oil when pressed, very valuable for lubricating 


the; trees of cedar vaeeEy 


47 


fine machinery. In my boyhood many of these trees grew 
along the Neshaminey, and there was a mill at Bridge 
Point, now called Edison, for extracting the oil. In 
those days we made husking pegs of hickory as well as 
pins to fasten together the mortised timbers for barns. 

Across the base of Seiler’s hill and scattered through 
the woods everywhere on the northern exposure grows 
the black or sweet birch. It is from this tree that we get 
the “oil of sweet birch” of the druggist. But there are 
three varieties of this material in commerce with very 
different values. The first is the oil of wintergreen which 
brings $5.00 per pound, then oil of birch, which is worth 
$2.00 and finally the synthetic article made from carbolic 
acid and methanol which sells for 40 cents. Most of our 
trees are no thicker in the trunk than a man’s leg. 
Anderson says that when he was a boy a man bought all 
the birch for miles around and distilled oil from it. The 
birch we have is not more than thirty years old. The bark 
was peeled from the large sticks and the smaller twigs 
and leaves were cut into small pieces and put into a 
steam-tight chest made of wood. Steam was blown 
through and condensed in a pipe placed in running water. 
The oil goes over with the steam and falls to the bottom 
of the condensed water. The water is poured off and the 
oil filtered through an old felt hat. 


48 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARUFY 


Evelyn says that the sap from birch as well as that 
from many other trees is very useful and calls attention 
to a communication in No. 40 of the Philosophical Trans¬ 
actions concerning such juices. This communication 
reads as follows: 

“A Suggestion 

For taking more notice than hath been done formerly, of 
the Juyces of Trees, by tapping them. 

“Although some have been Curious in taking notice 
and making use of the Liquors of some Trees by tapping 
them, yet is there much wanting in this kind of Observa¬ 
tions and Tryals, in regard there have been upon this 
account but very few Trees examin’d, comparatively to 
' those, that are yet left unconsider’d and untry’d. The 
Publisher, therefore, being lately discours’d with upon 
this subject, and told, how great an addition there might 
be made to this knowledge, and how beneficial that might 
prove both for the preservation and recovery of Mans 
health, (it being instanc’d to him,, that one of the present 
Kings of Europe drinks much, and finds great benefit, 
of the juyce of Walnut-trees;) thought himself obliged 
to recommend the enlargement of the said knowledge, by 
further Experiments, to all Ingenious and Industrous 
Men; as also to request them, that they would please to 


the trees oe cedar vaeeey 


49 


impart unto him for publick use, what they either already 
know, or shall hereafter discover and learn of that 
nature/’ 

Evelyn discourses on this subject at considerable 
length. He tells us that his friend “has not yet en¬ 
countered with any sap but what is very clear and sweet; 
especially that of the Sycomor, which has a dulcoration 
as if mixed with sugar, and that it runs one of the 
earliest: That the Maple distill’d when quite rescinded 
from the body, and even whilst he yet held it in his 
handHe recommends that a hole be bored in a large 
arm of the tree, a spigot inserted and a bottle placed 



below. A figure is 
given showing how 
this is to be done 
with the birch. By 
using such juice to 
brew beer there is a 
great saving of 
malt. “The Eiquor 
of the Birch is 
esteem’d to have all 
the Virtues of the 
spirit of salt, with¬ 
out the danger of 






50 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAUFFY 


its acrimony; most powerful for the dissolving of the 
Stone in the Bladder: Helmont shews how to make a 
Beer of the Water; but the Wine is a most rich Cordial 
. . . This wine, exquisitely made, is so strong, that the 
common sort of stone-bottles cannot preserve the spirits.” 

The sweet birch is not a large tree but it makes beauti¬ 
ful white floor lumber, and I shall use it for this purpose. 
Anderson Calvin says that if these boards are made from 
young timber they curl very badly. 

Next in number are the red cedars, or junipers, 
which give the valley its name. It is commonly supposed 
that cedar land is poor land. It is true that cedars are 
often found on poor land, but it does not follow that 
they will grow nowhere else. In several places there 
are groves containing no other trees but in most places 
they are mixed with the birch which has out-stripped 
and is now smothering them. They grow to a diameter 
of six to eight inches and twenty to twenty-five feet high. 
In the Bermudas the cedar is the prevailing tree. It 
is a different variety and grows to a greater size. 
Cabinet makers look for stumps and gnarled pieces 

which are beautifully marked when polished and make 
beautiful paper knives, etc. The wood is soft and rather 

corky. The heart wood resists decay, so that cedar fence 
posts are in demand and bring a good price. In some 
specimens the red heart-wood constitues nearly the whole 


the trees of cedar vaeeey 


5i 


tree; in others it forms only a small core; in other 
instances the wood is beautifully variegated with red and 
yellowish stripes. In some sections south of the Ohio 
in the valley of the Tennessee and in Alabama it grows 
in pure sand to a diameter of three or four feet (Elliott, 
“Timber Trees of the United States/’ page 207). This 
is the pencil wood and tobacco box tree. 

I have found many red mulberries and one black 
one but the white moms alba or nmlticaulis is absent. 
Probably the silk worm craze never reached this valley. 
That it was rampant in Easton is evident from the 
“escapes” which we find along the valleys of the Lehigh 
and Delaware where it was cultivated. The root bark 
of this tree is very tough and makes good cord. This 
is also true of the osage orange which yields a yellow 
dye, but I have found no osage orange in Cedar Valley. 
Joe Illick says (“Pennsylvania Trees,” page 154) “that 
the wood resembles walnut and makes up into furniture 
which is pleasing to the eye.” If it is as dark as black 
walnut it makes furniture only fit for a prison or some 
other abode of gloom. I believe the Germans started 
the craze for walnut furniture, which is quite on a par 
with their utter lack of taste in art matters. Illick says 
that this wood makes good posts. The berries are also 
good for boys with hungry stomachs, and what boy 
is not everlastingly hungry? 


52 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VALEEY 


The black gum is a not uncommon tree. Its alligator 
bark, bluish berries, horizontal limbs, straight trunk and 
red autumnal foliage are very characteristic. It is a bad 
man for the woodchopper. The grain is crooked and 
twisted; even Abraham Lincoln would have had trouble 
in splitting it for rails. But it makes good hubs and 
chopping blocks. I bought some rope the other day and 
the salesman cut it with an axe on an ancient chopping 
block. The block had been cut across the trunk. He 
told me that in damp weather the axe flies back about 
to the point where it started. Mauls for driving wedges 
seem to have gone out of fashion. I mean to revive the 
fashion and to use black gum for the maul head. 

The flowering dogwood is quite common, too com¬ 
mon, for it is of slow growth never grows large and the 
stems are crooked. The wood is, however, hard and 
dense and valuable for a few uses. There are many 
old trees in my plantation, and I intend to cut them all 
out at one time, assemble and saw the timber and cut 
it into stuff for turning. It makes excellent dowel pins, 
golf sticks and tinners’ mallets. There are many young 
trees suitable for bean poles and I shall cut as many as 
possible for this purpose. The crooked pieces make ex¬ 
cellent firewood. It is a gorgeous plant in the spring in 
flowering time and covers the hillsides with a lovely, 
variegated blanket. The trees do not flower alike, some 


THE TREES OE CEDAR VAREEY 


53 


of the involucres are pure white, others pink. Last 
year the flowers were very beautiful, this year they were 
a failure. This variation with different conditions is 
very striking. During the autumn the tree is beautified 
by its crop of red berries. I admired them as a boy and 
tried many times to string them in necklaces but with 
very poor success. The beautiful Canada dogwood, 
Cornus Canadensis, does not grow so far south but is 
very common in the Poconos. This is a tiny tree, not 
more than a foot high, with a single involucre placed 
symmetrically in the center of its spreading branchlets. 
This, too, has bright red berries. The genus is so-called 
from the hardness of its wood—cornus a horn. 

One winter day Israel and I were exploring the 
woodland, estimating roughly the value of the timber. 
Israel is a good woodsman and knows the trees better 
than I. We stopped below a fine straight specimen. 

“What do you call it, Israel?” said I. 

“It’s an alum tree,” said Israel. 

This was a puzzler. I had never heard of an alum 
tree, but I was too uncertain of the bounds of my 
knowledge to be sure that such a tree had no existence. 
All day and into the night I puzzled over the alum tree. 
Finally the solution flashed on me, — he meant elm tree. 

Two varieties are common. The first in my affec¬ 
tions is the red or slippery elm. This is not a large tree 


54 


OUR farm in cfdar VAFFFY 


and is rather short-lived. Its lumber is said to be much 
like that of the white elm — tough, spilts badly, but 
makes excellent barrel staves, decays when exposed. 
Elliott says that there is an impression that it resists 
exposure, but this probably arises from the fact that 
when immersed in water it stands up well. For this 
reason it is used in England for blocks and ship timber. 
The inner bark of the slippery elm was one of the 
delights of my hungry boyhood. It shared my affec¬ 
tions with the sweet birch, and in lesser degree, the 
spice bush, or babywood as we called it. In the spring 
we looked for the rusty buds, and one mouthful of the 
inner bark was enough to set at rest all doubts. How 
delicious it was! The taste seems to have changed. In 
those days I ate birch bark, slippery elm, babywood, 
seeds of the common mallow, “cheese cakes” we called 
them, two kinds of oxalis or “sour grass,” buds of the 
sassafras, wild cherries and chicken grapes. The other 
day I caught one of our small ones eating garlic, so I 
conclude that children are degenerating. 

The white elm is one of the glories of New England. 
Like the sycamore it prefers moist ground, and some¬ 
times grows to a great size, with a buttressed stump. 

When I bought the farm and after I had gone over 
the woodland I wrote to the State Forester for advice as 


the: TRE:ES of CFDAR VARI^Y 


55 


to its treatment and he sent Mr. Irving Williams, his 
assistant to see the tract. I pointed out to Mr. Williams 
that there were a great many sassafras trees and that, so 
far as I could see they were not a very valuable tree. 
He said, yes, that was true in part, “but/’ said he, "‘You 
must not forget the birds; they feed on the sassafras 
seed and they must have something to eat.” Now I am 
fond of birds and mostly they are of benefit to the farmer 
but I think some of them are of very doubtful benefit. 
If two robins are fighting you will, if you watch them 
carefully and without prejudice, find that they are not 
the gentle, tender beings the baby books make them out, 
but rather two perfectly ruthless savages. Some of the 
sentimentalists who love the birds so much better than 
other people do are simply out of touch with the realities. 
Watch a blackbird pull corn! If it is your own corn 
you will revise your ideas about the birds very rapidly. 
I shall leave a few trees standing especially if they are 
seed bearing and tolerably straight, but the crooked 
fellows that occupy valuable space and will never give 
any lumber must come down. I think this was as far as 
Mr. Williams wished me to go. The timber has very 
little value, so far as I know though I have heard it is 
used for fishing poles. Probably only straight-grained 
pieces can be used for this purpose. 


5^ 


OUR farm in cfdar varrFy 


When the root of the sassafras is distilled with 
water an essential oil, which consists mainly of safrol, 
is obtained. This sells now for $2.00 per pound, but 
is substituted for many purposes by a material made 
from camphor oil. This sells for less than half as much. 
This oil is often used for scenting cheap soap, made of 
rancid fat. It disguises the odor so that a better price 
can be obtained. An oil called heliotrope oil is made by 
oxidizing oil of sassafras. This is used for soaps of a 
better grade. 

The swamp maple is a rather common tree on 
Seiler’s hill, but I have seen no sugar maple. The 
swamp maple sends out red -suckers from the stumps. 
It is an unprofitable tree. We propose to cut it out and 
substitute the sugar maple which, under forest condi¬ 
tions makes wonderful lumber for floors. For sugar 
making it must have more air and light. It does not 
seem to be good policy to try to grow a tree like this for 
more than one purpose. If we want shade, and it is one 
of the best shade trees, we must grow it in the open 
and not tap it; if for sugar it must also have air and 
light; if for lumber it must grow long straight logs, that 
is, it must be grown in the forest. Dancing on a well- 
laid maple floor is a delight. Sometimes the timber is 
gnarled and we get curly maple, or the structure known 
as bird’s eye maple. Years ago Dr. Thomas Conrad 


the: trees of cedar vaeeey 


57 


Porter pointed out to me the great variations in the shape 
of the maple leaf. In this leaf the sinus is rounded while 
in the swamp maple it is sharp. 

I have noticed but one sugar berry tree in the valley. 
It grows by the roadside, is about three feet in diameter 
and must be a very old tree; it is the largest specimen 
I have seen. This tree is usually called a small one; 
Gray so speaks of it; Ittner says it is seldom found 
with a diameter of over thirty inches. The timber seems 
to be of little value. The horse chestnut is also a small 
tree but I have seen what remained of one near Bath 
which was a giant before a recent storm which broke off 
a portion of the stem. This is an historic tree. The 
young plant was given by General Washington to 
General Robert Brown, then on a visit to Mount Vernon, 
in 1777. It was twenty-seven feet in girth before it 
was broken and about seventy-five feet high. It was 
one hundred and forty-four years old. 

The black walnut is springing up every where and 
there are many good sized trees. A few of these bear 
nuts but this seems to be the exception with forest grown 
trees. The tree makes valuable timber. It is especially 
useful for gun stocks because the timber does not check in 
drying. For many years it was used for furniture. For 
this it seems singularly unfitted because of its dark color. 
It absorbs the light and gives a gloomy appearance to 


58 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARUFY 


the rooms. The butternut is even more common, but 
the trees do not appear to flourish; neither do they bear 
much fruit and when they do the fruit is not in great 
demand. The wood of the butternut is soft and lighter 
colored than that of its cousin the walnut. 

There are a few beech—a very few—and only one 
of any size. This is growing near the eastern edge 
of the timber. It is a noble tree but appears to be a shy 
seeder; I have found only a few young beech trees grow¬ 
ing near by. In my boyhood days I went to school at 
Bridge Point, now Edison. Back of the school house 
growing on the bank of the Neshaminey were several 
large beech trees. We boys diligently sought for and ate 
the nuts as they fell in the autumn; but the proportion of 
cheats was large and the fodder rather meager. Evelyn 
says: “In the Vallies (where they [the beech trees] 
stand warm and in Comfort) they will grow to a stupen¬ 
dous procerity, though the soyl be stony and very barren: 
.... The Beech serves for various Uses of the House¬ 
wife; 

Hence in the Worlds best years the humble Shed, 

Was happily, and fully furnished: 

Beech made their Chests, their Beds and the joyn’d 
stools.” 

Beech made the Board, the Platters and the Bowels. 
with it the Turner makes Dishes, Trays Rimbs for 


the: trees of cedar valley 


59 


Buckets, and other Utensils, Trenchers, Dressers-Boards, 
etc., likewise for the Wheeler, Joyner, and Upholster 
for Sellyes, Chairs, Stools, Bedsteads, etc., for the 
Bellows maker and Husbandman his Shovels and Spade- 
grass; Floates for Fishers Nets instead of Cork is made 
of its Bark, for Fuel, Billet, Bavin and Coal though one 
of the least lasting: Not to omit even the very Shavings 
for the fining of Wines. Peter Cresentius writes that the 
Ashes of Beech with proper mixture, is excellent to make 
Glasse with. If the Timber lye altogether under water, 
tis little inferior to Elm, as I find it practised and asserted 
by Shipwrights But I must break off this discourse 
about trees, lest I become tedious. 


CHAPTER VIII 

More About the Rocks 

The southern slope of Cedar Valley is covered with 
rocks, and our efforts to cultivate it meet with great re¬ 
sistance from them. In some places they are very plenti¬ 
ful, very large and very hard. They are granitic in 
structure, and we can recognize quartz and feldspar as 
the most abundant constituents. 

How our knowledge) broadens and deepens as the 
years roll on! I have in my hands a copy of “Mineralogie 
ou description generale des substances du regne minerale” 
written by Jean Gotschalk Wallerius, Royal Professor 
of Chemistry, Metallurgy and Pharmacy in the Uni¬ 
versity of Upsala and published in Paris in 1753. This 
copy belonged to Dr. James D. Dana, the famous Amer¬ 
ican mineralogist, and has his signature on the title page 
dated 1836. In the Preface Wallerius tells of still older 
works on the same subject by Urbain Hierne, First 
Physician to the King of Sweden, in 1674; by Magnus 
de Bromall, in 1730 and by Emanuel Swedenborg, the 
eccentric, many-sided genius, in 1734. The Preface 
winds up with the wish: “May this work contribute to 
the Glory of God, the benefit of my country and of my 
co-citizens.” 

He divides all fossils, or minerals as we should call 
them, into earths, stones, minerals and concretions. The 


MORE) ABOUT THE ROCKS 


6 l 


earths are divided into dusty, clayey, mineral and sand; 
the stones into calcareous, vitreous, refractory and com¬ 
posite or rocks; the minerals into salts, sulfurs, half¬ 
metals and metals; the concretions into argillaceous, 
petrifactions, figured stones and calculi. 

Between this classification and that of Dana’s last 
edition lies a vast gap, bridged by the labors of thousands 
of workers. Is it possible that all this knowledge may 
be lost entirely in some future upheaval? We know 
it may. 

There are so many things in science that seem to be 
settled one day that we find need revision the next. It 
is generally believed that the earth’s crust was once 
molten and the minerals slowly crystallized out, form¬ 
ing small crystals if the time was short, larger ones if 
the cooling was slower and glasses if the cooling was 
very rapid. But are we certain of this? and the answer 
must be, not quite. If this be true many minerals must 
have crystallized under the immense pressure. Moissan 
thought this pressure was necessary to form the diamond, 
and Crookes pointed out that natural diamonds some¬ 
times exploded and the reason probably was that they 
had crystallized under great pressure and when this was 
relieved they were not strong enough to withstand the 
stresses set up. 

5 




62 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARRFY 


These rocks of ours certainly cooled slowly if the 
theory be correct, for they are often coarse grained. 
They are certainly very hard. A few appear to have 
weathered and are easily broken with the sledge but 
most of them are tough almost beyond belief. Because 
they are so tough and unalterable we believe they will 
make good road metal and furnish good stone for con¬ 
crete, now used so universally in building construction. 
So we purpose erecting a crusher to furnish crushed stone 
and at the same time clean up the land. We drive a bar 
beneath the boulders and insert one or more cartridges 
of 60 per cent dynamite. This is exploded by a spark 
from an electric, push-down exploder. The boulder is 
tossed into the air and sometimes broken. To break 
up stones that are too large for the sledge we use mud- 
caps : one or more sticks of dynamite are placed on the 
stone and covered with a lump of wet clay. If the 
charge is heavy enough, when it is exploded there is a 
loud crack the mud is dissipated as dust, and the stone 
shattered as with a giant sledge-hammer. 

According to the theory referred to the granites 
were once in a state of fusion below the earth’s surface. 
In some cases this pressure was removed through 
volcanic vents and the granite was ejected as lava, either 
as a glassy mass called obsidian or as a glassy sponge 
—the so-called pumice stone. Where the liquid mass 


MORE) ABOUT THE ROCKS 63 

was deep seated and cooled slowly the different minerals 
separated, sometimes slowly in large crystals—the peg¬ 
matites, sometimes in smaller crystals—the granites 
proper. It would be tedious to go into detail on the 
formation of minerals. Those who are interested will 
find material in F. W. Clarke’s “Data of Geo. Chemistry.” 

These rocks must be very old—among the oldest 
on the earth, and it seems like desecration to rend these 
venerable ones and scatter their fragments over the 
roads. 

As I have said, a considerable amount of iron ore 
has been mined on the slope of Seiler’s hill at various 
times. There are numerous remains of open pits, shafts, 
and dams for collecting water to wash the ore. These 
remains lie well above the valley floor. This ore was 
probably brown hematite which is found abundantly in 
the valleys of the South Mountain. It is mostly limonite 
and contains about 40 per cent of metallic iron, too 
little to make it valuable so long as richer ores are plenti¬ 
ful ; but a time will come again when it can be mined 
with profit. It lies in irregular masses at the contact of 
the granite and the dolomite limestone. The miners say 
that it is still forming. Before the eighties the Lehigh 
Valley was a great center of the iron industry and 
many furnaces were blazing. Charcoal iron was made 
at first. This fuel was gradually replaced by coke as 


64 


OUR farm in cfdar VAULFY 


the wood disappeared, and afterwards, in part, by anthra¬ 
cite. The story of how anthracite came to be used in 
iron making is a very interesting one and has been 
charmingly told by the late Samuel Thomas, a son of 
David Thomas, who first made anthracite iron at 
Catasauqua, in the Transactions of the American Insti¬ 
tute of Mining Engineers for 1899, Volume 29, Page 901. 
David Thomas was a Welch iron-furnace superintendent 
at Yniscedwin. There were several veins of anthracite 
in the valley and young Thomas undertook to use some 
of it in his furnace but without success. 


CHAPTER IX 

Another Ride 

I had gone thus far in the story of anthracite iron 
making when I was reminded that I was due at the 
meeting of the Bucks County Historical Society at 
Tohickon Park. This was to be a basket picnic, but 
there is a restaurant there, and as Anna was busy I 
hunted up my pocket drinking cup and started off in my 
Franklin runabout. Our niece, was on her way to Tren¬ 
ton and I agreed to leave her at the depot. We were 
much ahead of train time and I suggested that we ride 
to Riegelsville together and she take the train there, to 
which she willingly agreed. The river road was being 
repaired so we climbed Morgan’s hill on the Old Philadel¬ 
phia road by terrific grades and then meandered along 
the summit until the road crosses another valley, into 
which it drops by grades equally steep. The road is 
poorly located, poorly made and poorly kept at heavy 
expense to the taxpayers. My road tax this year was 
over $60.00 on an assessed valuation of a little over 
$6,000. This is partly compensated for by the magnifi¬ 
cent views of the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys from 
the summits. We passed near the Hexenkopf which is 
the highest peak in the vicinity. Peter Walters cut the 
timber from this several years ago and has been trying 


66 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


to sell me the land. It is covered with young timber and 
looks like the head of a recently cropped youngster. 
There is an old stone grist mill in the valley a little beyond 
which derived power from a stream flowing down along 
the road and reaching the river near Coffeetown at 
Peter Walter’s home. This mill is no longer used for 
its original purpose. In my boyhood, had we passed it, 
we should have heard the rumble of the machinery or 
the click, click, click of the miller’s hammer as he 
roughened the surface of the stones. The farmer took 
his wheat and corn there, the miller ground it, took his 

portion as toll, and returned the rest. In those days the 
farmer ate his own grain, baked into bread by his wife 
in a “Dutch Oven.” Nowadays he sells his grain in town 
and buys his bread from the baker’s wagon which has 
invaded the hills. 

After I had stopped at the station, I met an old 
friend, a contractor, on his way to pay off the men work¬ 
ing for him on a new road. He had a bag containing 
$2,500 with him and said he felt nervous carrying money 
around for there had been several “hold ups.” 

Once again, now alone, I set my face southwards 
along the State Road. This is a good road, although too 
crooked, until Red Hill is reached. Beyond this point 
the road is built of red shale, soon to be replaced by con¬ 
crete. This red shale grinds to a fine powder under the 


ANOTHER RIDE 


67 


wheels which in dry weather, like this, rises as a red 
dust,—a very objectionable companion. In wet weather 
it turns into a sticky, filthy putty. I shall always try to 
avoid living on the red shale. 

At Tohickon Park I found my old friend, B. F. 
Fackenthal, Secretary-Treasurer presiding, in the absence 
of Dr. Mercer, the President. Sally, his wife, with some 
friends, was in the audience and when we adjourned for 
lunch she insisted that I join them. And now comes the 
point of this story: for there I once more met Edwin 
Thomas, son of Samuel Thomas, and I said to him: 
“Just before I left home I was writing over again the 
story of how anthracite came to be used in the iron 
blast-furnace, a story your father first told in 1899.” 
Such coincidences are curious, to say the least. I have 
in my library four volumes of the Journal of the'Society 
for Psychical Research. Three of these volumes belonged 
to Sir William Crookes and contain his bookplate. He 
was President of this Society in 1898 and by accepting 
and filling the office gave a fine exhibition of courage; for 
it was unpopular then, as now, to give serious considera¬ 
tion to such matters, and scientific men, especially, 
frowned upon it. 

In his address as President of the British Association 
for the Advancement of Science for 1899 Crookes says: 


68 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VALLEY 


“To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen 
the gates of knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty 
or adverse criticism is to bring reproach on Science. 
There is nothing for the investigator to do but to go 
straight on, To explore up and down, inch by inch, with 
the taper his reason’ to follow the light wherever it may 
lead, even should it at times resemble a will o’ the wisp.” 
And a little further on he says: “If telepathy take 
place we have two physical facts—the physical change 
in the brain of A the suggester, and the analogous 
change in the brain of B, the recipient .... All the 
phenomena of the universe are continuous, and it is 
unscientific to call in the aid of mysterious agencies 
when with every fresh advance in knowledge it is shown 
that ether vibrations have powers and attributes abund¬ 
antly equal to any demand,—even to the transmission of 
thought.” I met Sir William and was his guest in London 
in 1895. He was tall and spare, with a courteous but 
rather cool manner. He was democratic to the last degree 
and treated us alike. At that time he was at the head of 
his profession—a great chemist and physicist whom I 
looked at with awe. As I read his works and study his 
career since then my admiration deepens. He was one of 
England’s great men. Like so many of her sons then and 
now he had a catholic spirit that took in all mankind; this 
moves us all to emulation. 



ANOTHER RIDE 


69 


But all this time young David Thomas is vainly try¬ 
ing to use anthracite in his furnace at Yniscedwin. It 
was not until the invention of the hot blast by James 
Beaumont Neilson, in 1828, that the use of anthracite in 
the furnace became possible. At this time Neilson was a 
gasworks engineer in Glasgow. It was known at that 
time that the blast furnace worked much better in winter 
than in summer, “and here comes a fellow who never 
ran a furnace and tells us we must heat the blast when 
we know that cold air works better.” By dint of per¬ 
severance, however, Neilson succeeded in trying his 
method and obtained a patent. This was a discovery 
even greater than that of Thomas. “One evening while 
sitting with Mr. Crane in his library, talking the matter 
over, he took the bellows and began to blow the anthra¬ 
cite fire in the grate. ‘You had better not, David/ said 
Mr. Crane, ‘you will blow it out,’ and Thomas replied 
‘If we only had Neilson’s hot blast here the anthracite 
would burn like pine! Mr. Crane said: ‘David, that is 

the idea precisely !’ ” 

/ 

In 1837 a furnace, using hot blast, with anthracite 
as fuel, was successfully blown in at Yniscedwin, and 
the new baby was born. 

In 1838 Mr. Erskine Hazard, one of the leading 
spirits in the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co., with his 


70 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VALLEY 


son Alexander, visited Yniscedwin and induced Thomas 
to come to the New World and build an anthracite 
furnace. He did so, landing at New Brighton, Staten 
Island, in 1839 from the clipper ship Roscius. He lay ill 
here for a month of a fever and then journeyed to Allen¬ 
town. The trip from Jersey City to New Brunswick 
was made over the New Jersey railroad laid with strap- 
iron rails; thence by stage to Easton, where the first 
night was spent, and thence to Allentown where he lived 
with his family while the furnace was being built at 
Biery’s Bridge. The masonry was laid by Isaac McHose 
whose son Samuel afterwards built many furnaces. The 
blowing engines were run by water power and the blast 
was heated in a coal-fired furnace. 

After heart-breaking delays the furnace was blown 
in at 5 P. M., July 3, 1840, and was an immediate suc¬ 
cess. In January, 1841, the furnace was drowned out by 
the great freshet in the Lehigh after it had produced 
1,080 tons of iron. The largest weeks’ product was fifty- 
two tons. Of his father’s part in this work Samuel 
Thomas says: “It has never been claimed that no anthra¬ 
cite pig-iron had been made in this country prior to 1840, 
but only that the commercial success of this manufac¬ 
ture dated from my -father’s work at Yniscedwin in 
1837 and at the Crane works, Catasauqua, Pa., in 1840.” 


ANOTHER RIDE 


/I 

In his wonderful “Geschichte des Eisens” Beck tells us 
(Band IV, S. 760) that Dr. Friederich W. Geisenheimer 
was the first to make anthracite pig-iron in a New York 
furnace in 1830 for which a patent was issued in 1831. 

I have in my library a copy of “Forges and Furnaces 
of the Province of Pennsylvania,” published by the 
Society of Colonial Dames of America” printed in 1914 
and presented to me in 1920; it is a beautiful book, con¬ 
taining numerous illustrations of old furnaces, stove 
plates, cannon, cannon balls, fire places, etc. 

In 1919 Anna and I took part in a meeting of the 
Berks County Historical Society of which we have since 
become members. We were guests of Lee Clymer of 
Riegelsville, Pa. Lee was a pupil of mine in the years 
gone by and we have been warm friends ever since. Dr. 
Hill of the Wernersville Asylum, a brother-in-law of 
Mr. Clymer, and Miss Valeria Clymer, his daughter, 
were also in the party. We had a very gay time. Dr. 
Hill hinted that it was perfectly proper for me to take 
the trip with him, but without a keeper it might have 
excited remark. We both admired Miss Valeria’s driv¬ 
ing so extravagantly that her father finally declined to 
drive at all. We stopped at several places to inspect 
collections of china and glass, as well as many other 
antiques. Some of the glass had been made by Baron 
Stiegel at Mannheim, where he had a glass works. The 


72 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAFFFY 


Baron was apparently a very enterprising, energetic man 
for he also built and operated an iron furnace) at Eliza¬ 
beth Furnace, Lancaster County. 

He was a gay blade, and built a castle on Thurm 
Berg, near Schafferstown, where, for a short time, there 
were lively doings. In 1774 he became insolvent and 
was imprisoned for debt in Philadelphia. Afterwards 
he taught school at Schafferstown and Womelsdorf and 
was a clerk at Charming Furnace and Berkshire Furnace, 
both of which he had once owned. 

The original Elizabeth Furnace, not so named then, 
was built by John Jacob Huber who inscribed on it: 
Jacob Huber der erste deutsche Mann 
Der das Eisenwerk vollfuhren kann. 

When Baron Stiegel built the second furnace he 
named it after his wife, Elizabeth Huber, and on each 
of the stove plates he manufactured placed these lines: 

Baron Stiegel ist der Mann 
Der die Ofen giessen kann. 

This year we went on another pilgrimage with the 
Berks County Society, again as the guests of Lee Clymer. 
This year Dr. Hill drove his own car and we did not see 
so much of him. He told us that he had spent a part of 
the summer with his wife and friends touring in Cali¬ 
fornia, Wyoming and Idaho. Miss Valeria was with us 


ANOTHER RIDE 


73 


again and David Skillman, Esq., joined us at Reading. 
Again we visited forges and furnaces, starting from the 
Society’s home on N. 4th St., Reading. Three hundred 
and twenty-five people were in the party, showing how 
interest in such subjects is increasing. It was recalled 
that at a similar outing seventeen years before but twenty- 
five people were in the party. 

In the course of the day we visited Spring Grove 
Forge, built by Cyrus Jacobs in iygo, Rower Windsor 
and Windsor Forges, so named by William Branson, 
who built a forge here in 1743. The property is now 
owned by Miss Blanche Nevin who distributed a 
pamphlet describing it. We were told that Miss Nevin 
is a sculptress, to which two figures of Buddha on the 
lawn and lions rampant bear testimony. There is a good 
picture of the old mansion in Anne Hollingsworth Whar¬ 
ton’s book “In Old Pennsylvania Towns.” 

From here we went to Reading Furnace, built by 
Samuel Nutt in 1720, and thence to Warwick Furnace 
where we drank from the spring once patronized by the 
immortal George, had lunch and spent the rest of a 
pleasant two hours renewing old friendships and mak¬ 
ing new ones. At Hopewell and Johanna Furnaces, 
which we also visited, parts of the buildings and furnaces 
are still standing. Hopewell Furnace was built in 1759 


74 


OUR FARM IN CE)DAR VARRFY 


by William Bird the founder of Birdsboro. Johanna 
Furnace was built in 1752 and belongs to the estate of 
Col. F. Heber Smith. The house was thrown open to 
our inspection by Miss Mary Grubb Smith, a cousin of 
Mr. Clymer and a beautiful and charming lady who 
welcomed us. 

The oldest blast furnaces known to history, used 
for the manufacture of iron from its ores, were little 
more than holes in the ground into which a tube from 
some form of bellows was inserted, and which was 
filled with a mixture of the ore and charcoal. The 
Egyptians used such a furnace in very early times, and 
it is my belief that they learned the art from the 
Ethiopians from the south, who from still older times 
had practised it. The result of this early smelting pro¬ 
cess was not our modern cast iron, but a steely wrought 
iron mixed with the resulting impurities of the ore in 
the form of a slag. This slag was a ferrous silicate. 
The metal was not fused but was hot enough to be 
sticky and formed a “bloom,” hence the term “bloomary” 
given to the forges which produced such iron. 

Since the furnaces were small and the radiating 
surface large in proportion to the size of the product 
the consumption of charcoal was large in proportion to 
the finished iron. Because the slag was a silicate of iron, 


ANOTHER RIDE 


75 


the product was small in proportion to the ore used. 
The cost of the iron was, therefore, high, notwithstand¬ 
ing the fact that labor was then relatively very cheap. 
These difficulties have been, one by one, overcome; but 
the efficiency now attained in the iron and steel industry 
has been of very slow development. In those early days 
of which I write, there was no available fuel but char¬ 
coal, mostly made in meilers in the forest where the 
wood was found. The forges were invariably located 
on streams where water power was available to operate 
the blowing engine and the forge hammer. The char¬ 
coal, ore and limestone, when limestone began to be used, 
were hauled long distances by heavy teams to the furnace, 
and the iron hauled long distances to its market in the 
city. The support of the teams and teamsters was a 
heavy item of expense, requiring good management and 
made a market for the produce of the surrounding farms. 
A successful furnace spelled prosperity for the district 
in which it was located. But the wood disappeared 
rapidly under the axe of the charcoal burner and other 
fuel had to be found. Then came coke from the west 
and anthracite from the north to take its place and the 
vast commerce stimulated the building of canals and 
railroads as nothing else could have done. The appli¬ 
ances then used would cut a sorry figure were they 


;6 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VARREY 


placed besides those used to-day. Not so the men and 
women; they were made of sturdy stuff. They worked 
hard, drank hard and lived hard lives. They married 
young and died young; but they built their lives into 
the land everywhere in Pennsylvania and other states. 
We do well to remind ourselves of what they did and 
how puny were the instruments of such mighty deeds. 


CHAPTER X 

The Springs in Cedar Valley 

NE of the greatest blessings man can 
have is plenty of clean pure water. 
We have it in abundance in Cedar 
Valley. There are springs almost 
without number. Through the center 
of the valley flows Cedar Run fed by 
the springs on both sides but chiefly by those from 
Morgan’s hill. I have made no accurate estimate of 
the amount of water or the drop but think there should 
be enough when properly put to work to furnish at 
least five horsepower in the winter months. This means 
about eight or ten months every year and will give enough 
power to furnish light at night and saw our wood and 
run our churns and threshing machines in the daytime. 

Some of the springs lie well up in the hills, and one 
of them has a 150 feet drop before it reaches the bottom 
of the valley. The water from Morgan’s hill is said to 
be soft while that from Seiler’s hill is supposed to be 
hard. This means very little for these terms are not 
used with much accuracy by the country folks. I shall 
have to test the water with Clarke’s soap solution to 
see exactly what the facts are. The springs on Seiler’s 
hill dry up in very dry weather but those on Morgan’s 

hill are unfailing though the volume of flow varies with 

6 



78 


OUR farm in cedar VAEEEY 


the season. The spring on Seiler’s hill from which we 
expect to draw water for the house is seventy feet above 
it so that we shall have plenty of pressure without pump¬ 
ing. For dry periods we will build large underground 
cisterns to store the water. If it becomes necessary we 
can carry a pipe across the valley from one of the springs 
on Morgan’s hill. As I write we have had no rain for 
a month but there is still good water in the spring on 
Seiler’s hill. Anderson tells me that there is another 
spring on this hill that never goes dry. Below the spring 
on Seiler’s hill I propose to build also a pool for making 
ice in winter and bathing in summer. This should be 
lined with concrete. It will of course be in the wood¬ 
land so that the bathers may have privacy. Alongside 
of and below this pool a leveled space covered with sand 
is to be provided so arranged that it can be flooded with 
water for raising water cress. This is a profitable crop, 
gives little trouble and makes a very agreeable addition 
to the diet in the spring time. Near this the tasty horse¬ 
radish should flourish and far below quince trees, lovers 
of the damp. 

Between the river road and the trolley track, about 
a quarter of a mile north of the run and under the 
shadow of Morgan’s hill, here very steep, rises the most 
beautiful spring of all, with a stream as thick as my 
wrist. Here I have bought a small tract overlooking the 


the; springs in cedar vaeeey 


79 


river road, the canal and the river. I am to have as 
much water as I need for my own use but not the fee 
simple of the spring. 

If we have a sufficient water supply and enough 
storage room for water we may count on getting a crop 
no matter what the weather. As soon as possible I shall 
clean out and wall up the streams and build wiers to 
measure the flow. This will give the necessary data for 
planning our power works. The sixth annual report of 
the New York State Water Supply Commission contains 
a paper by David R. Cooper on “Water Power for the 
Farm and Country Home.” He first calls attention to the 
possibility of using small powers for electric lighting, 
and he proceeds to give the power necessary for carrying 
on ordinary farming operations and gives several in¬ 
stances illustrating such applications. It seems to me that 
if farmers installed such conveniences the children would 
be much more likely to feel content with farm life. 


CHAPTER XI 

The Roads in Cedar Valley 

The Old Philadelphia Road, as I have said, runs 
along near the crest of Morgan’s hill until it descends 
into and crosses South Valley. For this distance of about 
five miles, the Lehigh and Delaware pursue nearly 
parallel courses about two miles apart. The old road 
dropped into the Lehigh Valley at South Easton by two 
abrupt and very steep descents: one of these which led 
from the summit to the South Easton plateau dropped 
200 feet in a quarter of a mile, while the second dropped 
from this plateau into the valley at an equally steep angle 
for half the distance. Both these heavy grades have been 
improved by building a new road into and along the hill¬ 
sides, but still the grades are in places uncomfortably 
steep and the road is rough. The material used in filling 
the washings is a soft sandstone from a roadside quarry 
near the summit. This is excellent material for country 
roads but it contains stones scattered through it. It is 
also fortunately situated as all the hauling necessary will 
be down hill. The road makers have used this material 
unskill fully. It has been used nearly as it comes from the 
quarry and the roads are rough and full of holes. I 

learn, too, that there is a township debt of $16,000 and a 
total income of $9,000 to care for sixty-six miles of 
road. 


the: roads in cedar vaeeey 


8i 


The solution I propose is as follows: i. Lay aside 
the interest on this debt and $1,000 for sinking fund. 2. 
Buy a trommel run by horsepower to screen and size 
the road material. 3. Fill the ruts only with fine stuff 
making no attempt at new roads until the debt is paid 
off, and on the fairly level roads use a split-log scraper. 
4. Let the larger stones accumulate and when the funds 
allow buy a crusher; when bought, take care of it. 5. 
As money allows, relocate the roads so as to reduce 
grades and wash-outs. In the course of a generation 
this should give excellent roads. 

In order that we may reach the State Road along 
the Delaware in all weather, I have had the men cover 
the half mile of connecting road with boiler ashes. When 
this has a depth of six inches and is well packed it makes 
a good road. Our woods roads are to be covered with 
this material until crushed stone can be had. We are 
convinced that good roads are no longer a luxury, they 
are a necessity. 


CHAPTER XII 

Ups and Downs 

The most even tempered have their ups and downs 
—periods of hope and discouragement. In one of the 
down periods of the first year I wrote the following: 

My Fairy Farm. 

I dreamt a lovely fairy dream, 

Of roses, buttermilk and cream, 

My fairy farm lay in the hills 
Away from smoke and city ills. 

With orchards stretching on for miles, 

Fruit heaped beneath in luscious piles, 

As I dreamt on my orchard grew 
And heaps of gold my fancy drew. 

My hens laid eggs in dozen lots, 

My ducks swarmed in the swampy spots, 

My pigeons cooed around their cots, 

My bees filled up their honey pots. 

But now I own this fairy farm, 

I view my prospects with alarm, 

The crows and rabbits work me harm 
And bees fly off in vagrant swarm. 

The robins, without saying please, 

Pick all the cherries from my trees, 

The bunnies gnaw the bark with ease 
The drouth kills off my crop of peas. 


UPS AND DOWNS 


83 


The beetles dine on my potatoes, 

Rot carries off my choice tomatoes, 

In springtime days at early morn, 

The blackbirds confiscate my corn. 

Horseshoeing bills and bills for feed, 
Fond city longings in me breed; 

’T will take three railroads and a mine, 
To run this fairy farm of mine. 



These were dreary days. The war was still on and 
in all our thoughts. Every day brought its tale of ruin 
and death until it grew into a long drawn-out horror. 
These were days of terror and of strain. 
































OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 

War. 

Boom of cannon everywhere, 

Screaming missiles cut the air, 

Cruel gases just set free, 

By the Prussians mad decree. 

Fields about all seared and barren, 

Seamed by shell and mixed with carrion. 
Corpses lying heaped around, 

Groans from wounded on the ground. 

Fertile fields cut up with trenches, 

From them rising dreadful stenches, 

Homes all gone, trees stone dead, 

Airplanes dropping death o’erhead. 

Plell upon the earth let loose, 

What’s the use? What’s the use? 

But in November the end came, and the dreadful 
pressure of rising prices, taxes, liberty loan and other 
drives was relaxed. Once more we were free from the 
dread of a Prussian overlord. High prices and taxes 
were to stay for many moons but the beginning of the 
end had come. That Christmas was a happy one. 

A Christmas Song 1918. 

The War is over. Peace spreads her wings 
Over the joys this Christmas tide brings, 

Bandage the wounded, bury the dead, 

Forget if we can the life we have led. 




UPS AND DOWNS 


85 


Four years of war, four years of hell, 

Over the world and its happiness fell, 
Horrible years of a horrible strife, 

Destroying the sweetness and comfort of life. 

Christmas bells ring again 
Let Christmas bring again 
Peace, while we sing again 
Christ is our King again. 


So ended the first year, and in more cheerful vein 



■Kf. 


I wrote 


A Song of Days. 

Sing of the bee, taking her busy flight, 

Sing of the sun, driving off the night, 

Sing of Dame Nature’s days, fresh and bright. 


Sunny the days that go to make July, 
Sunny the life beneath his flaming sky, 
Sunny the summer as our life goes by. 



Happy the springtime, strolling through the grass, 
Happy spring hours that brighten as they pass, 
Happy our youth, it comes but once, alas! 


Fruit fills our orchards in the autumn days, 
Fruit of the vineyard shimmers through the haze, 
Fruitage of life work fills our harvest trays. 




86 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


White is the winter, snowflakes cover all, 

Yellow the fireplace in the cheerful hall, 

Golden our visions as evening shadows fall. 

Most people appear to find this a dull world; to me 
it is full of life and beauty. No scene is twice alike. 
The light, the shadows, the play of colors and the clouds 
vary from day to day lending fresh interest. The change 
of seasons gives another variable. We see the same 
scenery in the spring, summer, autumn and winter and 
never twice alike. The world is full of beauty if we 
only have eyes to see it. As the winter wore on, the 
earth became white. The wood choppers cleared off the 
dead and crooked trees, and one morning all the woods 
was covered with a diamond covering. 


My Diamonds. 

My diamonds grow upon the trees 
In winter, when there is no breeze, 

When fog falls softly o’er the earth, 
These splendid gems of mine have birth. 

They sparkle in the sun’s bright rays, 
And gladden happy winter days, 

They deck the woods in splendor rare, 
Though twigs beneath be brown and bare. 


UPS AND DOWNS 


87 


Then fade into the earth and sky, 

Their beauty lost in passing by. 

Each day earth some new beauty finds, 

That brightens, fades, like passing winds. 

If, now, each day have beauty rare, 

What place can with our earth compare? 

But, if, with eyes, I cannot see, 

What use can beauty have for me? 

Then comes Easter when Love was born again. The 
greatest gift to mankind has its anniversary to be kept 
with thankful hearts and a new realization of the omnip¬ 
otence of this gift which Christ gave us. 

An Easter Song. 

Time knew no conqueror so great 
Before He came. 

Now land and sea and sky 
Proclaim the name 
Of Love, the mighty one. 

Sadness was king on earth 
Before his birth, 

But now Love reigns as king 
O’er everything. 

O Love, Almighty One! 









88 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAULEY 


Christ died that Love might reign 
And once again 

This Easter morning may we see 
His lovely majesty. 

O Love, Almighty One! 



And now the spring comes 
again with rain and running 
water; the grass greens, the 
trees bud and the birds sing 
their song on the lawn in the 
early morning as we awaken 
to fresh hopes and aspira¬ 
tions. 


CHAPTER XIII 

The Fertility of the Soil 

In 1812 Sir Humphry Davy delivered a course of 
lectures on the Elements of Agricultural Chemistry be¬ 
fore the English Board of Agriculture. These were 
published in 1913 by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and 
Brown, London, in a beautiful volume of 323 pages 
with an appendix containing results obtained by John 
Duke of Bedford on the nutritive qualities of different 
grasses. The copy in my possession was owned by H. 
Home Drummond whose signature appears on the title 
page with the date 1813. 

Sir Humphry writes in that pleasing, easy style 
characteristic of all his work. He tells us that “Jethro 
Tull in his treatise on Horse-hoeing published in 1733 
advanced the opinion that minute earthy particles sup¬ 
plied the whole nourishment of the vegetable world; that 
air and water were chiefly useful in producing these 
particles from the land; and that manures acted in no 
other way than in ameliorating the texture of the soil, 
in short, that their agency was mechanical. This ingen¬ 
ious author of the new system of agriculture having ob¬ 
served the excellent effect produced in farming by a 
minute division of the soil, and the pulverization of it by 
dew and air, was misled by carrying his principles too 
far.” 


90 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAI^FY 


Davy’s treatise is well worth reading to-day. He 
was awake to the value of an examination of the soil 
and the necessity of supplying missing ingredients. He 
tells us that the Arenaria tenuifolia will grow and lib¬ 
erate oxygen in an atmosphere of almost pure carbon 
dioxide, but that most plants do better in an atmosphere 
containing much smaller amounts. In one of his ex¬ 
periments he tells of growing a section of turf in a dish 
floating on the surface of water under a bell jar. The 
water was saturated with carbon dioxide and more water 
so saturated was added daily. He tells us that the carbon 
dioxide disappeared and oxygen was liberated but he 
fails to note how the presence of this excess of carbon 
dioxide affected the growth of the vegetation. 

During the years 1845 to 1849, Liebig tells us,* 
“I made a series of experiments on the action of the 
different mineral manures, on a considerable scale, on a 
piece of land of about ten English acres, which I pur¬ 
chased with this object from the town of Giessen. Pre¬ 
vious experiments which I had made in my garden in 
the town had yielded no result. Whatever I did, or 
whatever I might add to the soil, I was unable to trace 
any perceptible effect from any of my mixtures. The 
only cause which I could discover for this apparent 
want of efficacy was the composition of the soil of my 

♦Principles of Agricultural Chemistry with Special Reference to the I^ate 
Researches Made in England, L,ondon, 1855, p. 40. 


the: fertility of the soil 


91 


garden, which by previous cultivation and manuring, 
had become in itself so rich in available mineral con¬ 
stituents, that the addition of relatively insignificant 
amounts of these substances, became, when compared 
with the amount already present in the soil, quite inap¬ 
preciable, This induced me to purchase the land alluded 
to, a sand pit to the east of the town, which I found to 
surpass all others in the whole surrounding district in its 
nearly complete barrenness for the ordinary cultivated 
crops. I do not believe that, in a whole year, there grew 
naturally on the ten acres as much grass or other fodder 
as would have sufficed for a single sheep. The soil is in 
part a light sand, in part it consists of more or less 
quartz pebbles and thin strata of sand with some loam. 

“I filled with the natural soil a number of flower 
pots, in which I sowed wheat, barley and red clover, and 
manured each with some single mineral manure. In 
none of these did the plants get beyond flowering. The 
land therefore was of the quality adapted to the object I 
had in view. 

“Messrs. Schwatzenberg & Co., of Ringkuhl, near 
Cassel, were so obliging as to prepare for me, in their 
soda works, according to the prescriptions I gave them, a 
quantity of mineral manure, which was spread uniformly 
over the land, except a portion used as a vineyard, on 
which there were about two thousand vine stocks, each 


92 


our Farm in cedar valley 


of which, on being planted, had a quarter of a pound of 
the manure mixed with the earth about its roots. On 
the different subdivisions of the land there were sown 
wheat, rye, barley, clover, potatoes, turnips, maize, 
topinambour; some small lots had sawdust added to the 
mineral manure, one had only stable manure, and another 
equal parts of stable manure and mineral manure. With 
the exception of the stable manure used for these two 
lots, no ammoniacal manure, and no animal substance 
was applied to any part of the field. One lot had several 
cartloads of forest soil from a neighboring wood; 
another had a mixture of forest soil and mineral 
manure. 

“Several of the most distinguished agriculturalists 
of the district, and among them Herr Von Fernhaben, 
thought that I could not succeed in growing wheat or 
clover on this soil; and the opinions of these gentlemen 
with regard to my enterprise are still fresh in my re- 
memberance. I had calculated only on a very small pro¬ 
duce in the first year, as the soil had never before been 
under cultivation; but however moderate, nay poor the 
harvest was, it yet surpassed that which I had anticipated. 
It was indispensable that some years should elapse before 
the constituents of the manure could be rendered soluble, 
and thus diffused throughout the soil. The barley was 
better on the lot manured with forest soil and mineral 


the: fertility of the soil 


93 


manure than on the other; on the lot which had been 

manured with sawdust and mineral manure the plants 

were also larger and stronger; the lot with stable manure 

and mineral manure yielded a crop of wheat as rich as 

that of any of the best of the neighboring fields. It was 

the effect of the sawdust and of the organic matter 

(humus) in the forest soil, and in the stable manure, 

which first opened my eyes to the true action of humus 

and decaying organic matter in the soil, and my previous 

notions on the subject were thus corrected and enlarged. 

The crop of turnips, clover and potatoes was, however, 

not yet sufficient for the keep of a cow. Only the rye 

and part of the potatoes were exported from the farm. 

I shall perhaps, at a future time, return to the description 

of the individual observations; and I only remark here, 

that, without any supply of manure from without, all the 

lots looked much better in the second year, and yielded 

a far higher produce. This fertility increased, so that, 

in the fourth year, the lots excited the admiration and 

wonder of all who had known the original state and 

quality of the land.” In another part of the same book 

(p. 20) Liebig makes his view of the action of humus 

clear, as follows: “The solid and liquid parts of the food 

of plants contained in the soil, enter the organism of the 

plant through the roots; their introduction is effected 

by means of water , which gives to them solubility and 
7 


94 


OUR farm in cedar vaedey 


mobility. Many dissolve in pure water, others only in 
water which contains carbonic acid, or some salt of am¬ 
monia. 

‘‘All those substances which render soluble those 
constituents of the soil which are by themselves insoluble 
in water, have this effect when present in the soil, that 
they cause the same volume of rain water to take up and 
introduce into the plant a greater quantity of these con¬ 
stituents. 

“By the progressive decay of animal manure, the 
animal and vegetable remains of which it chiefly con¬ 
sists are converted into carbonic acid and ammoniacal 
salts, and thus constitute an active source of carbonic 
acid, which renders the air and the water which pass 
through the soil richer in carbonic acid than they would 
be without the presence of these remains. 

“Hence animal manure not only supplies the plants 
with a certain amount of their mineral and atmospheric 
food, but also provides them, in carbonic acid and am¬ 
moniacal salts —those substances which are the most in¬ 
dispensable for the introduction into the vegetable or¬ 
ganism of the mineral constituents which by themselves 
are insoluble in water; and this to a larger amount in the 
same time than could be effected without the co-operation 
of decaying organic matter.” 


the fertility of the soil 


95 


It is well settled that the carbon of the plant comes 
from the atmosphere which contains only three parts 
carbon dioxide* in 10,000 parts air. The question natur¬ 
ally arises, what would happen if the carbon dioxide con¬ 
tent of the atmosphere were increased? Two answers 
have recently been given to this question. The first is 
that of Hugo Fischer (Zeitschrift filr Angewandte 
Chemie, 33 , 197). Fischer reminds us that all the activi¬ 
ties of life have their source of energy in breathing, 
and that in every living cell carbohydrates (sugars, cellu¬ 
loses, starches) are by this process converted into carbon 
dioxide and water. Opposed to this is the assimilation of 
plants whereby in the sunlight and in presence of the 
green chlorophyl of the plant the carbon dioxide and 
water unite to form carbohydrates while oxygen is given 
off. In other words, to put it in equations: 

Breathing: Carbohydrates plus oxygen (from the 
air) give carbon dioxide plus water plus energy. 

Assimilation: Carbon dioxide plus water plus energy 
give carbohydrates plus oxygen. 

The energy of the second equation comes, of course, 
from the sunlight, and for this reason we speak justly 
of our deposits of coal and oil as canned (gespeicherte) 
sunlight. 

♦It should be explained, that the term carbon dioxide refers to the gas, 
while carbonic acid is the substance produced when the gas dissolves in water. 


96 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAUUEY 


The carbohydrates so obtained serve as driving 
(breathing) material. As celluloses they form the solid 
framework of plants and the starting point for the fats 
and albumenoids. If we ignore their use as the food of 
the entire animal kingdom, they play a further part, in 
combination with other, especially the nitrogeneous 
compounds, they take part in reproduction, the flowering 
of plants and the formation of fruit. 

For twenty-five years, Dr. Fischer tells us, he has 
been anxious to determine whether an increase in the 
amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surrounding 
the plant would promote its growth ? Since the plant re¬ 
ceives more energy in the form of sunlight than it can use, 
it seemed that this increase of carbon dioxide offered the 
best chance of increasing the yield. In 1885, Kreusler 
made experiments which showed this to be the case but 
no practical use had been made of his results. Indeed it 
has been stated that the carbon dioxide is contained in 
air in proper proportion and that more would be harmful. 

It was not until the spring of 1911 that Fischer 
was enabled to begin his experiments in four small glass 
houses in the botanical garden at Berlin-Dahlem. His 
experiments showed that an increased amount of carbon 
dioxide in the air caused the plants to grow more rapidly, 
but not longer; more vigorously; they bloomed sooner; 


THE FERTILITY OF THE SOIL 


97 


gave more blossoms; sometimes with livelier colors; 
gave more fruit and in some cases resisted injurious in¬ 
sects better. 

In 1907 the Lunemburg Bergwerks und Hutten 
Aktiengesellschaft built an apparatus for purifying and 
using the blast-furnace gas for the cultivation of plants. 
The gas is completely burned so as to burn carbon mon¬ 
oxide, which is poisonous and not assimilated by plants, 
to carbon dioxide. The gas is then washed and filtered 
and pumped into the soil through cement tubes. It 
contains 5 per cent carbon dioxide. There are about 
1,170 square meters under glass which is a small portion 
of the surface which the small blast furnace is capable of 
supplying. If fully utilized the gas contains enough car¬ 
bon dioxide to produce 30,000 centners—6,600,000 pounds 
—of potatoes. The increased production obtained was in 
the ratio of 10 to 42. The increased supply of carbon 
dioxide apparently decreases the evaporation so that 
there is less loss from drought. 

If this statement is confirmed by later experiments 
it is certainly important, for it means that where carbon 
dioxide is obtainable (and the sources of supply are 
numerous) 840 bushels of potatoes per acre of land may 
be obtained in Germany, instead of the 200 bushels per 
acre which is now supposed to be a good yield! This 


98 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


increase in yield would be equally important for other 
crops such as wheat and corn if found to produce the 
same result. 

Indeed, the increase of yield in any crop is an im¬ 
portant matter for it means an increase in the supply 
without much increase in the exertion necessary to pro¬ 
duce it. Think what it would mean to the farmer to 
produce 60 bushels of wheat per acre instead of 15; or 
200 bushels of corn instead of 50. 

The other report is that of Cummings and Jones, 
in Bulletin 211 of the Vermont Agricultural Experiment 
Station. This report of experiments occupying seven 
good years work, and 56 pages of type of which two 
years, they tell us, were used in finding how to do it and 
how not to do it, makes melancholy reading, for it is 
obvious that they boggled, and that their results are 
quite inconclusive. It is impossible, they discovered, to 
work in closed glass boxes (if so how are hot houses 
possible) and so they used boxes with glass sides open 
at the top in which the plants were placed. The carbon 
dioxide was generated in bottles alongside and allowed 
to flow slowly into the glass boxes through a tube. Now 
carbon dioxide is heavier than air, and would first collect 
in a pool at the bottom and, if it did not kill the plants 
first, would then slowly mix with the air in the box by 
diffusion. If the operator moved around in the room 


THE FERTILITY OF THE SOIL 


99 


this would give rise to air currents which would cause 
the air in the boxes to fly over the sides and act generally 
like a toy balloon. 

The time and pains given by Cummings and Jones 
to this work appear to me to have been wasted for they 
have gone about it wrongly. Nevertheless their results 
confirm those of Fischer, mildly,—they had about io per 
cent improvement. I can scarcely understand how* they 
got any improvement. If I were to starve my baby for 
a while and then sit him in a basin of infant food coming 
up to, and sometimes over, his chin I would be treating 
him much as these plants were treated. 

Even if it shall turn out possible to conduct such 
operations only under glass they may become important, 
but let us do a little figuring: 

If we call a bushel of potatoes 60 pounds and suppose 
it to contain 25 per cent starch, sugar, cellulose and pro¬ 
tein and calculate this as starch, which will give us 
nearly correct results, and if we suppose the yield to be 
200 bushels per acre, this would require 4,888.8 pounds 
of carbon dioxide, supposing that it were all absorbed. 
At 10 cents per pound (about the price of the gas in 
cylinders) this would cost $488.88, at 1 cent per pound, 
$48.88. It is perfectly evident that we must have very 


9 ) 


IOO 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAUEEY 


cheap carbon dioxide. But even granting that we have 
cheap carbon dioxide how can we use the idea in the 
open field? 

Fischer points out that Liebig’s statement that car¬ 
bon dioxide in the soil acts only as a solvent has never 
been proven, and he insists that stable manure has always 
been the best manure so far as actual visible results are 
concerned. I think that most farmers are decidedly of 
the same opinion. If this be granted, it does not neces¬ 
sarily follow that the carbon dioxide in the soil is the 
manurial agent, still less is it certain that it goes into the 
roots in solution in the water. 

In looking further into this subject I turned to “A 
Text Book of Botany” written by Strassberger, Noll, 
Schenck and Schimper and published in 1898. Here I 
find the following (page 201) : “Artificially conducting 
carbonic acid through the water increases, to a certain 
degree, the evolution of oxygen, and thus the assimilation 
activity. Similarly an artificial increase of carbonic acid 
in the air is followed by increased assimilation. In 
sunshine assimilation attains its maximum in air contain¬ 
ing about 8 per cent of carbonic acid; with a higher 
percentage it begins to decrease. If the amount of car¬ 
bonic acid gas be increased 200 times (from 0.04 per 
cent to 8 per cent in the atmosphere) the formation of 
starch is only increased 4.5 times.” 


1 f 


the: fertility of the soil 


ioi 


But this is an enormous increase, and it begins to 
look as if Dr. Fischer’s dream was not a gas bubble and 
that the underlying facts have been known for twenty- 
three years or more. But why have they not been applied ? 
Fire gases contain large amounts, say io per cent of car¬ 
bon dioxide and lime kiln gases 30 per cent. This might be 
readily dissolved in water and the dilute soda water, 
charged with lime perhaps, fed to plants in soil destitute 
of humus and lime and the effect of stable manure pro¬ 
duced without its cost. • 

On further search I find a still fuller account of what 
was known at the time of publication in Gray-Goodale’s 
Botanical Text-Book, Vol, II, “Physiological Botany,” 
printed about 1885 and in Pfeffer’s “Physiology of 
Plants,” Vol. I translation by Ewart and published in 
1900. 

There is, however, another lion in the path: One 
hundred volumes of water dissolve only 0.878 volumes of 
carbon dioxide with a 10 per cent fire gas only 1/10 that 
amount so that an enormous volume of water would be 
needed. Still I am not satisfied, and I finally discover 
that Horace Brown in an Address as President of the Sec¬ 
tion of Chemistry of the British Association for the Ad¬ 
vancement of Science at Dover in 1899, P- 664 had re¬ 
ported on this subject and that he and F. Escombe in 1902 
had reported further in Vol. 70, p. 397 of the Proceedings 


102 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


of the Royal Society of London. Brown begins his address 

with an exhaustive history of the work done, beginning 
with Priestley’s discovery that plants would “dephlogis- 

ticate air that had been phlogisticated by breathing.” 

In the second paper he tells us that he grew plants 
of various kinds (enumerating them) in ordinary air 
with about 2.8 carbon dioxide in 10,000, and in air con¬ 
taining 3J/2 times this amount. The conditions as to light, 
moisture, etc., were as nearly alike as possible. After 
reading the paper we feel satisfied that here at last we have 
an experimenter who knows what he is about. He finds 
that the added carbon dioxide does make a great difference 
in the growth of plants. Assimilation and the storage of 
starch in the leaf is many times greater for a short time. 
Usually there is an increase in the number of internodes 
and while the plants are of about the same height there 
is a greater number of secondary axes in the axils of 
the leaves, and, especially in the Fuschias the plants had 
a denser and more bushy appearance. But while more 
leaves were formed they were smaller and the total 
area was less. The plants had a deeper green color but 
they bore no flowers and did not gain quite so much in 
weight as when grown in ordinary air. 

Now the living part of the plant is the protoplasm 
of the cell and it breathes all the time, taking in the air 
and giving out oxygen. In daylight this carbon dioxide 


THE FERTILITY OF THE SOIL 


103 


as well as that in the surrounding air is assimilated by 
the chlorophyl and, because of the constant amount of 
carbon dioxide in the air to which the plant is accustomed, 
a balance is established between the two processes which 
marks the normal existence of the plant. If we give 
it more carbon dioxide it lays up starch too fast and grows 
unhealthy. The answer is, then, that it is not possible 
to grow larger crops by increasing the carbon dioxide. 
Now, if Dr. Fischer and Cummings and Jones had given 
more study to what had already been done, they would 
have saved themselves and us much useless work. Surely, 
truth lies at the bottom of a well and few there be who 
can get it out. 

I had written thus far and laid down my pen with a 
sigh of relief feeling I had scotched a lie, when a friend 
said to me: “There is an article in the Saturday Evening 
Post of October 1, 1921, by Robert Crozier Long on, 
‘Raising Bumper Crops with Poison Gas’ which you 
should read.” I got the paper and read it. It was the 
same story I have recited above with fuller detail but no 
mention of Brown’s work. So I here add to my comment 
above: An untrue story well told will never die. 


CHAPTER XIV 


The Gases in the Soil 


In the year 1852 Boussingault and Eewy published 
a paper in the Comptes Rendus of the French Academy 
of Sciences upon the composition of the gases contained 
in fruitful soil. This paper is reprinted in the second 
volume of Boussingault’s collected papers on agricultural 

chemistry, and covers 47 
pages octavo. Boussingault 
was a very famous chemist 
and wrote an autobiography 
of which I have five beautiful 
volumes bringing the story 
of his life down to 1832 
although he lived until 1887. 
I have not been able to ascer¬ 
tain whether further volumes were issued. He was born 
in Paris in 1802. His earliest recollections, he tells us, 
are of the house in the Rue Parcheminerie in which they 
lived. This was one of the darkest and dirtiest streets 
in Paris. The sun visited their home only for an hour 
each day. On the right was a wig maker, and on the left 
a yeast vender. Opposite lived a cabinet maker, father 
Dupont, an old Jacobin, whose wife had been a knitter 

































the: gases in the soig 


105 



in the revolutionary tribunal. 

Father Dupont had a bust of 
Voltaire upon which he placed 
his hat. 

Boussingault was sent to 
school to an ancient female 
who taught the small boys and 
girls to read. She threatened to 
make him swallow her fist. The 
neighborhood was unhealthy, 
and he became dangerously 
sick of a fever. The physician was the celebrated Legal- 
lois, who experimented upon the temperature of the hearts 
of animals. To this Boussingault contributed by trapping 
and selling to him all the cats he could catch. The fever 
persisted and he went into a decline. He was put into 
a carriage by his mother and laid upon a mattress after 
she had thrown into the street the quinine and other 
medicine he had been taking. When he regained con¬ 
sciousness he found himself in a beautiful garden in the 
sunlight. From this place he entered a beautiful room 
which he thought very elegant. It contained porcelains, 
a clock, curtains, chairs, etc. He was given good milk 
every day. He was with his aunt Bertaud, sister of his 
father, married to a paving contractor. 



106 OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 

After recovering he went back to the Rue Parchem- 
iniere. This was in 1806 or 1807. At that time the 
people living there were the most miserable in Paris, 

the more so as the political 
conditions had dried up all 
sources of work. There was 
no industry and no commerce. 
The children suffered from 
famine and from cold; then 
the father or the mother sick¬ 
ened because of the privations 
they had suffered; Antoine 
and Jerome, who carried water 
for the district, were carried 
to the Hotel Dieu on a litter; 
they stayed there; the children became orphans; the com¬ 
missary of police arrived and opened an inquiry and the 
children were taken to the Enfants-Trouves; here they 
were called “children of their country;” in thirteen or 
fourteen years they became apprentices, then artisans, and 
then they went into the army. It was a sad sight to see 
the exasperation of the parents, especially of the mothers. 
A conscript was looked upon as a man condemmed to 
death. In these miserable families curses were called 
down upon everything, especially upon the government. 



















THE GASES IN THE SOIL 


107 


Napoleon was cursed, but in singular contrast, the con¬ 
scripts paraded the streets shouting “Vive 1 ' Empereur!” 
Once gone they seldom returned. 

Two parchment makers still lived on the street, and 
the trade was a very old one, going back to the time of 
Queen Blanche who lived in a house on the corner of 
the Rue du Foin and the Rue Boutebrie. Before the 
invention of printing the Rue Parcheminerie was the 
street of the parchment makers, and afterwards it was 
the street where the printers and those whose work 
replaced those of the copyists lived. At this time the 
two parchment makers made parchment for drumheads. 

I wish there was room for more of Boussingault’s 
story. He tells about the fall of the Empire, the arrival 
of the Bourbons with Alexander of Russia; of the execu¬ 
tion of Ney and of the White Terror. Boussingault 
attended the School of Mines at St. Etienne in 1818. 
This school had been founded a year before. It was 
located south of Lyons, and he made the journey there 
mostly on foot. Sixty francs per month (about $12.00) 
covered his expenses at St. Etienne. At the end of two 
years he was made Director of the Mines of Lobsann in 
Alsace, and became acquainted with M. Le Bel, the pro¬ 
prietor of the estate of Bechelbronn. They grew to be 
very friendly and he passed all his Sundays there. There 
were two children, Achille, then at a boarding school 


io8 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


at Strassburg, and a small daughter, Adele, five or six 
years old, half savage, yellow-haired, with coarse petti¬ 
coats, no student, with not a word of French; this was 
the girl he married fourteen years later, and who became 
the most gracious and amiable woman imaginable. In 
1821 he left Fobsann and started for Santa Fe de Bogota, 
South America, where he had been made a professor in 
a school just established for the education of civil and 
military engineers. Before starting he met the great 
Alexander von Humboldt who knew the country. Hum¬ 
boldt became much interested in him, gave him instru¬ 
ments and advice, and told him that he possessed the 
























the: gases in the soil 


109 


great faculty of being a good listener. This was the 
beginning of a warm friendship which lasted until Hum¬ 
boldt’s death. Many of the scientific papers which Bous- 
singault afterwards sent from South America were 
written as letters to Humboldt. He sailed from Antwerp 
in the brig New York in September, 1822. He arrived in 
Guayra in November after a voyage of two months, dur¬ 
ing which the American flag had been exchanged for that 
of Colombia, and the New York had become the Patriote. 
They had also captured the Spanish frigate, Maria Fran¬ 
cesca on the way. He saw many strange sights in the 
New World: a tree suffocated by a vine which it sup¬ 
ported; another tree which gave milk like that of a cow 
which he found to contain: 

Per cent 


Fibrin and albumen. 373 

Vegetable wax and sugar. 23.41 

Water . 72.86 


100.00 

Boussingault appears to have been something of a 

humorist. Here is a specimen: “In the year 1824 I was 

instructed to make a map of the district of Supia. I had 

two officers with me : Walker, an Englishman, and Roulin, 

in charge of the mapping. We occupied a large Indian 

cabin at the source of the river Succio de Enguma. It 

was an elevated station, the center of our operations. 

We had calculated the triangles we had drawn. For this 
8 







no 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VALLEY 


purpose we had built a large table. The rainy season 
surprised us; the roof leaked; we hastened to cover the 
books with a caoutchouc cloak, the poncho; then, after 
having lighted a fire of green wood, we took refuge under 
the table lying upon a pallet of cornstalks. We stayed 
there to smoke and chat. We had provisions and rum; 
we were sequestered for a day and a night; our gayety 
persisted in spite of our situation; Walker, because he 
had climbed the peaks for taking the angles and estab¬ 
lishing the signals, had only one boot. He was a man 
of regular habits, so, upon the even days, he wore the 
boot on the right foot, and on the odd days on the left. 
We undertook to describe the marvels of South America 
in turn: ‘The river of Cauca offers these phenomena: 
Upon one bank we have plantations of sugar cane and 
on the other lemons and oranges. When these mature we 
throw into the water the lemons, oranges and sugar cane 
and the Cauca immediately becomes a river of lemonade/ 

“But the greatest marvel 



from a humanitarian point of 
view is the palo de leche, palo 
de vaca, the cow tree. This 
miraculous tree allows us to 


dispense with nurses. The 
fastidious are excused from the duties of maternity. 



THE GASES IN THE SOIL 


111 


Henceforth the role of the women is limited to the bearing 
of children. The tree is charged with nourishing them 
with its milk. After having fastened the new-born in 
the tree in a net of large meshes, one cuts a branch in 
the vicinity. The section introduced into the mouth and 
tied to the lips assures a continuous supply of milk. 
Fifteen to eighteen months afterwards the nursling, like 
a mature fruit, large and fat, is detached from the tree 
and weaned. This is not all: The cow tree makes a 
considerable saving for the clergy. By reason of the 
large proportion of wax contained in the milk the cure 
can easily have a wax candle for morning and evening 
by drinking the vegetable milk after having swallowed a 
cotton wick.” 

Boussingault returned to France in 1832, married 
and settled at Bechelbronn. Here he began his study of 
the chemistry of the farm. In the air of the soil he finds 
that there is much more carbon dioxide than in common 
air, and in soil recently manured the amount of carbon 
dioxide is very large. In 100 parts of common air there 
are 20.9 parts by volume of oxygen, 79.06 nitrogen and 
only 3 parts in 10,000 of carbon dioxide. In many soils 
the air contains 2 to 3 parts per 100 of carbon dioxide 
and in a few cases as much as 9 parts carbon dioxide. In 
sand free from black organic matter, the so-called humus, 
the carbon dioxide falls to as low as 0.11 per 100. In 


112 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAUUEY 


most cases the oxygen decreases as the carbon dioxide 
increases, and the sum of their volume is only a little 
less than 20.9; in other words the humus is being oxidized 
at the expense of the oxygen producing an equal volume 
of carbon dioxide. 

Many factors contribute to the fertility of a soil, but 
it seems to be well established that one of them is the 
presence in the soil air of a sufficient amount of carbon 
dioxide. 


CHAPTER XV 

Picking Sweet Peas 

OR two years we have had 
sweet peas on the farm. A 
row perhaps 200 feet long, has 
given enough for our own 
table and home, some for our 
friends, and some for sale 
on Saturdays. The picking of 
these blossoms has been quite 
a task, in which Anna has taken the lead. But it some¬ 
times happens that Anna is to busy to go and then 
others must perform the task. This was Monday and 
the peas needed picking. There had been a long dry 
spell of seven weeks, and all the crops had had a hard time 
except the corn which was just beginning to show signs 
of distress when the heavens opened and soaking showers 
filled the fountains. Again it dried off and for two 
weeks more we had no rain, and then the rain again came 
down filling the earth with moisture. On Monday evening 
at five I drove to W—’s house and we started for the 
farm. M— was to go with us and so we drove first to 
M—’s home. M—’s brother and W— are very warm 
friends, and he was sitting on the porch as we drove up. 
W— ran up the steps and sat down beside him while we 





114 OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 

were waiting for M—. In a few minutes they were ready 
and we started. Neither of the girls had been over the 
Old Philadelphia road and they were full or delight as 
we mounted the hills and new views opened up. I had 
been reading and writing all day, and we chatted about 
ourselves and our friends and our friends’ friends and 
about what we had been reading, as we drove over the 
rough roads. We found that my talk with John Hahn 
about mending the road had borne some fruit for the road 
at the blacksmith shop had been filled and here and there 
a hole had been filled up elsewhere. The girls had not 
seen the sweet peas in bloom and were full of delight 
when we reached them. I got out the kettles and they 
began picking while I started on a tour of inspection. I 
found everything flourishing. The corn and lima beans 
expecially, looked well; we have had Alaska and Tele¬ 
phone peas in abundance to eat and some to sell in spite 
of the drouth and we found two peach baskets of Tele¬ 
phone peas which John had picked ready to take home. 
Beside these there were four patty pan squashes, beets, 
string beans, kohl rabi, potatoes and lettuce, and three 
tomatoes, the first of the crop. I usually cut down weeds 
and straw to mulch the latter but this year there was not 
enough so we cut off the small twigs from the sprouting 
stumps in some partly cleared woodland and used that 
as mulch for part of the plants. The rest were tied up 


PICKING SWEET PEAS 


115 

to cedar stakes. We are getting ready to plant celery 
and I found they had planted late cabbage. Next come 
pansies, Brussels sprouts and turnips. A few late rasp¬ 
berries and some blackberries had been picked. The 
cucumbers were setting fruit and the canteloupes were 
in blossom. Bunnies have discovered the cabbage and 
are eating it but there are some small heads, the parsley 
has seeded and is nearly ready to cut and the peanuts 
are ready to bloom. The nasturtiums and okra are grow¬ 
ing well, the sunflowers are almost ready to bloom, the 
salsify, parsnips, carrots and beets look fine but the onions 
seem to have suffered from the drouth. One of the men 
is unwell and we have been shorthanded but the rows are 
clean and look well. For some unknown reason the crop 
of Colorado potato beetles has been poor this year and 
we have had to spray the potatoes but once. As the 
result of continued cultivation the young orchard has 
grown finely and I am in hope of some fruit next year. 
A fine lot of asters in on the way and I have quite a lot 
of young gladiolus grown from seed. There was not 
time to inspect the grape vines which do not grow as well 
as I should like. 

We are nearly ready to plow a piece of newly cleared 
land from which we have blasted and cleared off some 
large boulders. This year we have used over three boxes 
of dynamite in this work. Occasionally we discover a 


Il6 OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAELEY 

new stone as we plow over the reclaimed land but when 
they find one the men pounce on it and out it comes. We 
have hauled about forty loads of manure and the worn 
out pasture land is beginning to show signs of the good 
treatment it has had. Whenever a breathing spell comes 
in cultivating the crops the men attack a fresh piece of 
land, blow out the rocks and stumps, fill up the holes 
and plow and sow the land. I have quite a crop of 
scallions nearly ready to pick; the drouth has matured 
them rapidly. With the wide awake farmer there are 
two tasks waiting where only one can be done; but what 
fun it is to see the plants respond to the care you give 
them and pour out their returns. This year I have had 
enough land cleared and planted to be able to grow some 
seed. I have already saved a noble lot of seed for next 
years peas. They grow well on this land and I hope 
next year to get good returns. Peas are not a favorite 
crop with the farmer and they sell rapidly in our market 
at a good price. When I get through my tour of inspec¬ 
tion I find the girls have gathered nearly all the peas and 
so we start for home in the gathering dusk. As I leave 
them they express their pleasure and ask me to take them 
again. There were three very large bouquets, one for 
each of the girls and one for Anna. 


CHAPTER XVI 

More About the Fertility of the Soil 

The question of how to get more humus into the 
soil or if that amounts to the same thing, how to get more 
carbon dioxide into the air of the soil is becoming more 
troublesome every year. The automobile and the truck 
are replacing the horse everywhere and if we begin to 
grow cow trees we shall have no cow manure. But one 
of the axioms of the successful farmer has been “over¬ 
stock and buy feed so as to make more manure.” Another 
plan is to grow green crops, such as clover, and turn 
them under. This seems to me poor economy. This plan 
is an old and in some respects a successful one but the 
reason of it was not fully understood until Hellriegel 
and Wilfarth published their famous paper in 1888. 
They discovered that the nodules upon the roots of beans, 
clover, alfalfa and other papilionaceous plants contained 
colonies of Bacillus radicicola which were in symbiotic 
relation with their host plant, taking from it sap contain¬ 
ing sugar and returning nitrogen compounds built by 
the bacteria from the nitrogen of the air. This was one 
of the missing links in the chain of the farmer’s knowl¬ 
edge. It has since been discovered that other bacteria 
and fungi have the power of taking up nitrogen from air 
and converting it into compounds which are needed by 


Il8 OUR farm in CFDAR VAIvLFY 

the wheat and other plants to perfect their seed. Until 
the time of this discovery little was known about sym¬ 
biosis. De Bary has since made the astounding discovery 
“that the body of the Lichens is not a single organism, but 
in reality consists of Algae ( e . g., fission Algae), which 
also exist in a free state, and of Fungi. The fungus 
hyphae within the Lichen weave themselves around the 
Algae; and while the latter occupy the upper or outer 
side of the leaf-like or cylindrical thallus as the more 
favorable position for assimilation, the hyphae come into 
the closest contact with them and absorb from them part 
of their assimilated products. The Fungi in return pro¬ 
vide the Algae with nutrient water, and enable them to 
live in situations in which they could not otherwise exist. 
As a result of this close union with the Fungi the Algae 
are in no way exhausted, but become more vigorous 
than in their free condition.” Since this key discovery of 
Hellriegel and Wilfarth it has been found that many bac¬ 
teria and some fungi have this power of nitrogen fixation. 
As early as 1856 Bineau showed that green algae could 
be grown in inorganic solutions. Pfeffer thinks, there¬ 
fore, that the chlorophyl cells can also build up proteids, 
but this power, if it exists, is but feeble. 

Winogradsky discovered that Clostridium Pasteuri- 
anum has this power and he tells us that it cannot 
develop except in an atmosphere of nitrogen. 


MORE ABOUT THE FERTILITY OF THE SOIL 119 

Hellriegel discovered that peas and other legumes 
grew very poorly unless these bacteroids of which there 
are six or eight strains specific for as many groups of 
leguminosae were present, and this was the reason that 
in certain soils legumes did not thrive. They must be 
present in the soil of Cedar Valley, however, for peas, 
string beans and lima beans thrive exceedingly. As I 
have already written, peas and lima beans are to be two 
of our standard crops, so that we shall probably be able 
to get enough nitrogen from the air and the vines added 
to the compost heap will help supply humus. 

M. W. Beijerinck, whose opinion is worthy of con¬ 
sideration, believes ( Chem . Abstracts, 14 , 3438) that 
Bacillus radicicola growing free or in nodules is only 
indirectly concerned with the fixation of atmospheric 
nitrogen. The protoplasm of the host plant is the catalyst 
responsible for the fixation. But perhaps you don’t know 
the meaning of some of these words! Protoplasm, then, 
is the living part of the cell, and a catalyst is a substance 
which causes something to take place which would not 
happen if it were absent. 

The European Corn Borer has made its appearance 
and, Anderson thinks, is going to be a great nuisance; I 
hope it will not be worse than that. Anderson told me to¬ 
day that he found some of them in dead stalks of Canada 
thistle. If it kills that pest it will not have lived in vain. 


CHAPTER XVII 

The Colloids of the Soil 

The current number (June, 1921) of the Journal of 
the Society of Chemical Industry has an account of a 
Symposium on “Physico-chemical Problems Relating to 
the Soil, ,> which was held by the Faraday Society on 
May 31. No less than six of the papers read were by 
members of the Rothamsted Staff. There is an experi¬ 
mental farm at Rothamsted founded by Sir John Eawes 
in 1828 for the study of agricultural problems. I read 
that “The mineral particles that make up the framework 
of the soil are regarded as being coated with a jellylike 
colloidal layer of both inorganic and organic material, 
which has a far reaching effect on the properties of the 
soil. The inorganic colloid contained in the clay frac¬ 
tion, and the organic colloid both have a large share in 
contributing to these effects, whilst the effect of calcium 
carbonate on the state of the clay also has an important 
influence on soil texture.” There is a lot more like this— 
but perhaps this will be enough for the present. It was, 
evidently, not intended for farmers’ reading. I have no 
quarrel with the gentlemen who read the papers, but they 
are so far away from raising more potatoes per acre 
that we need not chase them at present. A little later, 
when they know more about colloids, etc, we shall doubt¬ 
less find this worth while. 


THE COLLOIDS OF THE SOIL 


121 


One of the great troubles of some investigators is 
that they lose their way in a wordy fog. Difficulties of 
expression there are, of course, but exact knowledge 
breeds short words and simple sentences, and until we 
have exact knowledge it is sometimes worth while to keep 
the peace. 

For nine years I edited the Journal of the American 
Chemical Society and I am still one of the assistant 
editors. In all, I have edited chemical papers for thirty- 
four years. I am afraid I have grown just a little tired 
of the long talkers and writers, especially if they be of 
great erudition—and know it. 

Not long ago one of these investigators held forth at 
our Rotary Club meeting. He told us what wonderful 
work had been done at State College and how badly 
they needed the six millions necessary to go on with it. 
The cat was out of the bag; he was not investigating, or 
if so, one eye was looking for an appropriation. These 
fellows are getting to be more or less of a pest and are 
in considerable contrast with other investigators of whom 
I have heard and read—Scheele, for instance, the poor 
apothecary’s assistant, who probably never had ten dollars 
ahead in his life. He died poor at the age of forty-three 
leaving a list of discoveries that few can match and none 
exceed—and an immortal name. 


122 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


The term colloid was first used by the great chemist, 
Thomas Graham, in a paper in the Philosophical Trans¬ 
actions in 1861. Graham was a Scotchman. Here is 
what he says about colloids; I am quoting from a copy of 
his collected works privately printed for presentation 
only, and given to me by James Young and Angus Smith 
two of his friends: 

“They appear singularly inert in the capacity of 
acids and bases and in the ordinary chemical reactions. 
But, on the other hand, their peculiar physical aggrega¬ 
tion with the chemical indifference referred to, appears 
to be required in substances that can intervene in the 
organic processes of life. The plastic elements of the 
animal body are found in this class. As gelatine appears 
to be its type it is proposed to designate substances of the 
class as colloids, and to speak of their peculiar form of 
aggregation as the colloidal condition of matter Now it 
has been shown that most substances will assume the 
colloidal condition if they are finely enough divided. 
They are not in a state of real solution, rather in sus¬ 
pension in water or other liquid. The particles are so 
fine that they do not settle out, as in ink for example. 
From which you will understand that we are studying 
the properties of matter in a fine state of division, wetted 
by a liquid in which they are insoluble or nearly so. As 
a matter of course their behavior changes somewhat. 


THE COLLOIDS OF THE SOIL 


123 


The mechanical condition of the soil is of course very 
important, as I stated in an earlier chapter and mechanical 
analyses which determine the relative amounts of par¬ 
ticles of different sizes are frequently made. It is neces¬ 
sary to improve some soils and to give proper heed to 
methods of working. The Cedar Valley soil has rather 
too much clay, I should think, and in dry weather it 
bakes. When it is ploughed while too wet it is lumpy 
and I think it is probably rather cold. I notice that some 
of my neighbors get earlier corn and tomatoes than I 
have yet been able to do; but then I am not yet experi¬ 
enced, and have only just begun. I have a large pile of 
domestic coal ashes which I will mix with part of the soil 
to see whether it cannot be improved; if it is I will haul 
more of it. 

The best book on colloids that I have seen is that of 
W. W. Taylor on “The Chemistry of the Colloids” written 
in 1915. A more clearly written treatise, better suited 
to the general reader is that of Arndt, translated by 
Katz and entitled “A Popular Treatise on the Colloids 
in the Industrial Arts.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 

The Temperature of the Soil 

Very few farmers appear to pay much attention to 
the temperature of the soil, and I have never seen a 
farmer use a thermometer to ascertain it, but from recent 
experience I believe this to be desirable. 

It is very desirable to have early vegetables of all 
kinds and there is constant temptation to plant the seeds 
or the plants too early, usually with poor results. Just 
the right day must be chosen if the best result is to be 
obtained. 

Different seeds of course require different tempera¬ 
tures for germination, thus, Goodale tells us (p. 465) 
that wheat has been known to germinate upon pieces of 
ice. The minimum temperature for many seeds in culti¬ 
vation is given as 4.75 0 C. (= 40.55° F.). The minimum 
and maximum temperatures for the ordinary plants in 
cultivation are given as follows in Fahrenheit degrees. 


Minimum Maximum 


Wheat 

30-40 

88-98 

Rye 


88-98 

Barley 


88-98 

Oats 


88-98 

Peas 

40-50 

88-98 

Timothy 

40-50 

88-98 

Cabbage 


88-98 

Poppy and flax 


88-98 

Tobacco 

50-60 

88-98 

Squash 

50-60 

111-122 

Indian corn 

50-60 

111-122 

Cucumber 

60-65 

111-122 




the) temperature) oe the soie 


125 


Sachs places the minima 


Barley 41 

Wheat 41 

Indian corn 49 

Squash 52 


maxima and optima at: 


IOO 

84 

108 

84 

115 

91 

IIS 

91 


My own observations 
have been confined to the lima 
bean and egg plant. These 

are exceedingly sensitive to 
temperature changes. In this 
latitude, lima beans are planted 
in the open ground but if 
planted too early the seed 
decays. I had noticed this 
last year and this year I was 
cautious. We had a very 
early spring with succeeding heavy frosts. I planted the 
first lima beans about May 20. The soil was evidently too 
cold for very few sprouted. On June 1 I replanted these 
and planted some more. These did fairly well but some 
had to be replanted. On June 10 I planted the main crop, 
and these did best and will bear first, and on June 15 the 
last, a trifle too late. Next year I shall use a thermometer 
and plant in portions beginning when the soil shows 
6o° F. 

Egg plants are always seeded in the hot bed and 
planted out not earlier than June 1. But I am satisfied 

















126 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARRFY 


that this is too early in most years. I planted them this- 
year about the same time as lima beans but they did not 
begin to grow rapidly until nearly July i. I am satisfied 
that for these hot weather plants cold is harmful. Next 
year I shall try comparative experiments using a ther¬ 
mometer. 

This year I planted four rows of Golden Bantam 
corn on April 20. L,uckily the first few days after plant¬ 
ing were warm. There was frost just as the blades 
began to show but no great harm was done and to-day, 
July 15, we have the first boiled corn. This was grown 
on a northern slope. Had it faced the south I think we 
should have had it several days earlier. 

This year during the seven weeks drouth there was 
much sunlight and the temperature was high. The corn 
grew with great vigor and had a wonderful color with 
no trace of the sickly yellow of cold wet seasons. To¬ 
ward the end of the dry spell it showed signs of distress 
but, fortunately, the rain came before harm was done. 
The potatoes did well in the early part of this drouth 
but after three weeks they began to dwindle. It was 
quite plain to see that corn needs more heat and less 
rain, and peas were similarly affected, while lima beans, 
egg plants and tomatoes suffered scarcely at all. 

Goodale tells us, that corn will endure a heat of 
125 0 F. for a short time, nasturtium as much and the 


the TEMPERATURE oe the soie 


127 


common bean nearly as much. In Death Valley where 
the temperature frequently rises this high, they would 
probably be destroyed, but alfalfa grows and flourishes 
at China ranch in the upper part of this Valley; for I 
have spent two nights there, the first sleeping upon bales 
of alfalfa raised there and the second between two stacks 
of it. 

This was an interesting trip in the middle of winter. 
There was a strike of the coal miners and the college 
supply of coal was so short that we decided to give the 
boys an extra week of vacation. I had been telling the 
students for years about the deposits of boric acid in 
Death Valley, Cal., and the sofifioni of Italy, and I had 
an intense desire to see them. Here was the opportunity 
to see the California deposits, and I took it. One early 
winter morning found me on the station platform at 
Daggett, Cal. From here to Death Valley the trail runs 
in an almost straight line to the northwest over several 
divides and across several playa lakes, gradually rising 
until it reaches the summit of the Avawatz mountains, 
nearly 4,000 feet high, which border Death Valley on 
the south. 

Daggett is situated on an open plain and is said to be 
on the bank of the Mohave River but the Mohave River 
here steals along under the sand next to bed rock and no 
water and no banks are visible. The trail from Daggett 


128 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARRFY 


passes over the Mohave, then over a stretch of sand, 
and then over a playa lake to Marion five miles distant. 
A railroad also ran to Marion, owned by the Pacific 
Borax Co. 

In all this western country the light is very strong 
due to the dryness of the atmosphere. On these deserts 
the surface soil has little or no covering, and the wind 
and rain have an excellent chance to play havoc. While 
the rainfall is small, yet coming as it does in sudden 
downpours it causes heavy erosion. 

We reached Daggett at five o’clock in the morning. 
As I stepped out on the platform I had a gone sort of 
feeling at the pit of my stomach. Here' I was a long 
way from home; I did not know a soul; I was to go 
to a place I knew nothing about but the name. I thought 
of the man who went to the Klondike. He started with 
a fine outfit; a horse and wagon well fitted out and a 
dog. After several weeks he ate the horse and made a 
sled for the dog. Presently the dog disappeared and he 
was pulling the sled himself when he was overheard 
saying: “You miserable, ornery fool. You have a good 
mother, a good sister and a good home and you came 
away to this God-forsaken country. Get up! You son of 
a gun!” 

There was no one stirring but the station agent. 
After awhile he went away and I dozed until day broke. 


the temperature oe the soie 


129 


Then I found a darkey on the platform who said he 
kept a livery stable and could hire me horses and a 
wagon for the trip to Death Valley which was nearly 
100 miles to the north, but he had no driver and would 
try to find one; he said drivers were hard to find for 
nearly every man in the place had mining claims and they 
were all out working on these so as to comply with the 
law before the year was out. While he was looking for 
a driver, I made the acquaintance of a man who offered 
to take me out to the borax works and gave me a beauti¬ 
ful piece of Colemanite. On the way to the works we 
met the superintendent, Mr. Blumenberg, who asked me, 
as they always do in the west: “Where are you from ?” 
I told him. “Oh !” he said, “I know all about you. We 
have some of your chemical books in the office, and one 
of your students, the son of one of our largest stock¬ 
holders, has just gone east.” He was very kind, supplied 
me with a driver, told me how and where to go and made 
everything easy. Mr. Blumenberg took me to his mine 
which was seven miles northwest of Daggett on a narrow 
gauge road. Here an old lake deposit of hardened mud 
has been uncovered 60-90 feet thick, It now stands 
almost vertically. It contains 10 per cent boric acid and 
was carried to the factory at Daggett. Here it was 
placed in water and treated with the fumes of burning 
sulphur, brought from Japan. The boric acid dissolved 


130 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAUUEY 


in the water and the solution was allowed to evaporate 
in shallow tanks. No artificial heat was needed, the sun 
evaporated the water; the temperature reaches n8° in 
the shade and there are frequent winds with a velocity of 
forty miles an hour and more. 

My outfit for the trip to Death Valley consisted of 
a team of two horses such as the horseman calls “chunks”, 
and a driver, known locally as Tug, a lad of nineteen. 



Food and water for ourselves and fodder for the horses 
we carried with us. We also had a mess kitt and our beds 
but no tent. The bed is made as follows: First a strip 
of canvas 14 feet long and 5 feet wide is spread on the 
ground from which the stones have been cleared off. On 
this is placed a mattress and pillow; on these a woolen 
blanket folded, bag fashion, from the bottom. On this 
several blankets are placed and the canvas folded up over 
all. This makes a bed 7 feet long so that the head may 
be covered. The shoes are taken off and put under the pil- 







the temperature oe the soie 131 

low with the hat or cap and you crawl in without remov¬ 
ing your clothes. The canvas is pulled over the head and 
kept away from the face by standing a short stick upright 
alongside the head, which forms a small tent over the 
face and facilitates breathing. In the morning you put 
on your cap and shoes, wash your face, if there is any 
water, and are ready for the road. The bed is rolled up, 
tied with a rope and thrown in the wagon. 

We followed the trail used by the borax teams 
carrying supplies to their ranch at Furnace Creek in 
Death Valley, and crossed the playa lake to Marion where 
we filled our canteens. Here they roast the colemanite 
mined at Borate. Colemanite is a borate of lime con¬ 
taining water; it falls into a fine powder when heated and 
is sifted from the rock, sacked and sent to Bayonne, N. J. 
for conversion into boric acid and borax. My request 
to be allowed to see the Colemanite mine at Borate was 
not granted. Instead, I found after my return home, 
I had been followed around by a detective employed by 
the Pacific Borax Company to see what I was after. 
I was then employed by the General Chemical Company 
of N. Y. but my visit was made at my own expense and 
had no ulterior purpose. The grade from Marion to 
Borate, seven miles further on, is heavy, and the trail 
crosses the narrow gauge repeatedly. As the engine came 
shrieking around the mud hills it looks to the horses 


132 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAULEY 


like a veritable demon. This country is full of boric 
acid which seems to have accumulated in the ancient 
lake which once covered all this country, and has since 
completely dried up. From Borate we traveled to Coyote 
Wells where we watered our horses, then over a divide 
to Garlic on the border of another playa, and where 
the water was good, and here we camped, thirty-six miles 
from Daggett. 

These playa lakes are a peculiar feature of this 
country. They occupy the middle of each valley and 
have no outlet. The water from the unfrequent down¬ 
pours rushes into these hollows carrying along mud, 
gravel and stones in large amount. The coarse material 
is deposited at the edges of the lake and only the fine 
mud reaches the middle with the water where it is 
deposited. The water evaporates and the mud emerges 
and dries off making a very hard perfectly level road. 
All the soluble matter in the water remains in solution 
as the water evaporates until we have a saturated 
solution of common salt, Glauber’s salt, borax, etc. The 
crust on the surface of the playa allows very little evapor¬ 
ation but the water in the coarse material on the edges 
evaporates, leaving a thick crust like snow, more or less 
mixed with blown sand. Coyote Lake is the largest we 
saw and is perhaps twelve miles in its longest and five 
miles in its shortest diameter. Many thousands of tons of 


THE TEMPERATURE OE THE SOIE 


133 


alkali must be contained in the crusts around its edges 
and still more dissolved in the water beneath its surface. 
The amount of bread and butter eaten on this trip 
astonished me. Tug was no cook and I knew little more 
about it. We both loathed washing dishes, so that coffee 
and bread and butter with canned baked beans was our 
staple diet. 

We started out bravely with eggs and bacon, but to 
eat eggs and hog fat and then to clean that frying pan 
was too much for us, especially where water was scarce 
and time short. About a mile from our stopping place 
for the night we began gathering dead sage brush and 
grease wood stumps and throwing them in the wagon. 
When camp was reached we built a fire with them between 
three stones on which the coffee pot was placed properly 
charged. When the coffee boiled we began our meal; 
the coffee pot was emptied and we were ready for bed. 

Next day we pushed on over two divides to Cave 
Wells in the pass through the Avawatz mountains where 
we watered our horses. There is no stream here, only 
a cave dug out of a bank into which you descend to a 
pool of water in the bottom perfectly sweet and good but 
with no overflow. I was reminded of the sonate about 
which Stephens tells in his Travels in Yucatan. 

From Cave Wells to Saratoga Springs is a heavy 
down-hill grade of 4,000 feet into Death Valley and then 


134 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAUUFY 


of two miles across alkali flats. This day’s journey was 
forty-two miles and the horses were very tired. Saratoga 
Springs bubble up at the foot of the Funeral Mountains 
which enclose the valley on the north. The water is 
warm and contains some dissolved material, a little borax 
among other things. It is not very good for men but 
horses can and do drink it. There are a few small fish 
in it, and the puddles around it, called lakes here, are the 
resort of ducks and mud hens. Ten feet from the springs 
the alkali crust was six inches thick. 

There was a small hay barn at Saratoga Springs 
where alfalfa hay was kept for the borax teams. This 
hay comes from the China or Morrison’s ranch. It was 



called China ranch when a Chinaman lived there and Mor¬ 
rison’s because that was the name of the then owner. 
After supper I spread my bed on the hay bales while Tug 
spread his outside near the horses. About eight o’clock 
we were aroused by the noise of a team which turned out 



THE TEMPERATURE OE THE SOIL 


x 35 


to belong to Morrison himself with four horses and 3,000 
pounds of alfalfa hay which he had hauled from his ranch 
twenty-three miles away over a rough road since eleven 
o’clock that morning. Early next day I climbed over the 
black rocks of the Funeral Range to look at the Indian 


hieroglyphics while the others 
were breaking camp. On 
the way to Morrison’s I rode 
with him. He had spent 
several summers in the valley 
and said it was pretty hot— 




i! 




LL 



J 



times. On the way we crossed 
a low spur of the Funeral Range with wonderful 

sand dunes nearby. Then we 


T 



crossed the Amargosa which 
has less water than a mill 
stream and is bordered, with 
alkali crusts. At a short 
distance above the entrance 
to the valley it disappears in 
the sand. Morrison’s Ranch 
is on Willow Creek where 
twelve acres were under 
cultivation. We slept be- 
























136 


our Farm in cedar vaeeey 


tween alfalfa stacks and started home next morning. On 
the way we discovered a tarantula which had been be¬ 
numbed by the cold night air. When Tug was smaller 
he used to capture tarantulas for sale to one of the 
Daggett doctors at 50 cents, or four bits, each. The 
tarantula burrows in the sand with a trap door closing 
his hole two inches from the surface. One boy creates 
a disturbance around the door and the tarantula rushes 
up, closes it and holds on; then the other boy inserts a 
shovel below and throws him out on the sand when 
he is quickly caught in an empty bottle. The first 
day of our return journey was Christmas day and 
for dinner we had bread and butter, canned salmon and 
coffee. It was cold in the morning but we ate dinner in 
the shade of a rock with the thermometer at 8o°. That 
night we slept at Cave Wells where the rocks are infested 
with kangaroo rats which held high carnival, running 
back and forth over my bed as I slept. This must be a 
lively place in summer. Tarantulas are plentiful and 
there is a snake which Tug called a side-winder—poi¬ 
sonous. 

On the way back we met the borax team with twelve 
mules and two horses. Some of these teams have twenty 
mules, two abreast, pulling two enormous wagons which, 
beside water, carry a 52,000 pound load. The cost was 
20 cents per ton mile. 


the: temperature oe THE SOIE 


137 


Before leaving Daggett I had bought a $10 suit of 

clothes, too large for me and put it on over my other 
suit which kept the better suit clean and helped me to 

keep warm. When we got back I was tired, hungry and 
dirty; but Mr. Blumenberg had a hot bath ready for me 
and I was soon clean, rested and on my way to Los 
Angeles. 





































CHAPTER XIX 


The Soil Solution 

What an imperfect apparatus is the brain of man and 
how far it falls short of perfection. Knowing perfectly 
well that these things do not pay and make for evil, man 
will yet lie, cheat, steal, browbeat, oppress, and even 
commit murder. And yet how immeasurably superior 
the human machine to any machine he has yet con¬ 
structed; not one of the machines he has constructed are 
self-controlled. 

Man has studied agriculture since and before the 
days of written history, and still we are uncertain of 
many fundamentals. As Cameron puts it :* “It has 
also been generally assumed that the influence of fer¬ 
tilizers is additive, that is, the increase in yield of crop is 
« 

proportional to the increase in fertilizer added, and the 
increase in yield produced by adding two fertilizers is 
the sum of the increases which would have been produced 
by each alone. In this form the theory is essentially a 
quantitative one, and fertilizer practice, should be easily 
succeptible of control by chemical analysis. But the 
large mass of data obtained from plot experiments show 
that fertilizer effects are not additive.” And a little 
further on: “That analytical methods have a very re- 

*The Soil Solution, p. 5. 


THE SOIL SOLUTION 


139 


stricted value in indicating even qualitatively the fer¬ 
tilizer needs of the soil is evidenced by the fact that 
within the past few years a number of the State Experi¬ 
ment Stations have publicly announced their unwilling¬ 
ness to undertake them.” 

I am inclined to think this criticism rather too 
sweeping; at the same time the remark of the old Quaker 
to one of my uncles in speaking about religious matters 
is equally applicable to agricultural questions; Shaking 
his head he said: “I tell thee what, Sammy, what we 
don’t know is the most.” A diagnosis of soil conditions is 
exceedingly difficult and is hampered by a lot of varia¬ 
bles that cannot be predicated in any case; such as mois¬ 
ture and temperature. The kind of crop to be raised is 
just as much of a variable, some crops needing more and 
some less moisture, some doing better on an acid and 
some on an alkaline soil, etc. Cameron goes on to 
show that the amount of potash added per acre to soils 
is seldom more than 60 pounds, and that the analytical 
error is so large that this amount cannot be determined 
with any certainty. This is made clear by a table showing 
that the inevitable errors of analysis amount sometimes 
to as much as 0.07 per cent while a difference of 60 
pounds per acre to the layer of soil one foot in depth 
would amount to 0.002 per cent. Cameron also calls in 
question the methods used for determining “available” 


140 


OUR farm in cfdar varlfy 


plant foods. He denies that there is any necessary rela¬ 
tion between the amounts extracted from soils by the 
diluted hydrochloric acid, citric acid or other purely em¬ 
pirical solvent used and that which would be extracted 
by the plant sap which ‘‘does not come in contact with 
the soil grains, except through an accidental destruc¬ 
tion of the plant. 

According to Whitney and Cameron* it is the soil 
solution which adheres as a film to the soil particles upon 
which the plant feeds. An acre-foot of soil contains 
32 pounds of phosphoric acid and 80-100 pounds potash. 
This is ample for the needs of the plant. The soil con¬ 
sists, not of decomposed minerals as had been supposed, 
but of fragments of minerals partly decomposed soluble 
in the soil solution, the concentration of the soil solution 
depending somewhat upon the fineness of the particles: 
the smaller the particles and the larger the surface ex¬ 
posed the more concentrated the solution. The plant in 
growing throws off toxic substances which interfere with 
subsequent growth of the same plant and sometimes 
with the subsequent growth of more than one plant; 
hence the necessity of a rotation. Inasmuch as these 
toxic substances are dissipated or destroyed by aeration 
it is necessary to cultivate the soil to increase and renew 
the air supply. This cultivation also allows the top layer 

* Bulletin No. 23, Bureau of Soils, U. S. Dept. Agr. and Farmers' Bulletin 
No. 257, U. S. Dept. Agr. 


THE SOIL SOLUTION 


141 


of soil to dry out. But only interstitial moisture moves 
up by capillary attraction. The film moisture covering 
each particle remains so attached and does not move up 
by capillary attraction as the upper layer dries. 

Whitney’s statement that practically the same solu¬ 
tion, ample for the needs of the plant is present in all 
soils brings up the question—then why use fertilizers? 
This he answers as follows: “It is just along this line 
that the Bureau (of Soils) is working and it is just along 
this line that we are getting most interesting results, 
results even now apparently of practical application; and 
this brings me to my fourth heading.”* 

This was printed in 1906 and is decidedly indefinite. 

The Soil Solution was printed in 1911 but Cameron’s 
answer there contained under the caption “Fertilizers, 
Chapter XII,” is couched in the most general terms and 
cannot be said to be satisfactory. 

Commenting on the table showing the composition 
of the soil solution taken from different soils Fraps says** 
“The Bureau of Soils claims that the composition of the 
soil extract is practically constant in all soils, but it is 
difficult to see how the preceding analyses can be recon¬ 
ciled with such claim.” Here is the table from Bulletin 
22 as recalculated by Fraps: 

* Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 257, p. 13. 

** Principles of Agricultural Chemistry, p. 201. 


142 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAUFFY 


Variation in Composition of Son, Extract 


Parts per million of soil Pounds per acre foot 



Phos- 

phuric 

acid 

Ni ro- 
gen 

Potash 

Phosphuric 

acid 

Nitrogen 

Potash 


p 2 o 5 

N 

k 2 o 

P2O5 

N 

k 2 o 

Windsor 







sand 

1.6-7.6 

0.2-7.2 

I 3 -I- 55-3 

5.6-26.6 

0.7-25.2 

45.8-193.6 

sand 

1.0-9. 

0.2-6.4 

13 - 9 - 54-0 

3 - 5 - 53-9 

0.7-22.4 

48.7-189.0 

Sassafras 





loam 

Leonard- 

1.3-12.7 

0.1-10.4 

trace- 

9 - 5 - 56.2 

4 - 5 - 44-5 

0.3-36.4 

33 - 3 -I 96.7 

town loam 

1.7-9.7 

16.5 

72.1-62.0 

5 - 9 - 33-9 

tr.-57.S 

42.3-217.0 

Cecil sandy 






loam 

0.3-16.3 

tr.- 7-7 

9.0-87.2 

1.o- 57 -1 

tn-26.9 

31.5-285.2 

Cecil clay 

1.4-24.0 

tr.~9.2 

5.9-100.6 

14.9-88.0 

tr.-32.2 

20.7-352.1 


In the third column fourth soil either the author or the printer has 
probably made a slip, and 72.1 should be 7.21. 


But the soil solution is not the only means by which 
the plant obtains food for it has been shown that roots 
excrete acid potassium oxalate and it is known that 
roots will etch limestone with which they come into con¬ 
tact. 

The attack of Whitney and Cameron is from the 
standpoint of the physical chemist, and so far we must 
hold some of their contentions not proven. 























CHAPTER XX 

Telling Stories 

Y LITTLE boy likes 
stories. He wants a 
new story every day. 
Sometimes he asks 
for two stories in one 
day, but he seldom 
gets that many. Often 
he comes and crawls 
into my bed and puts his head on my arm and asks for 
a story. One day I was very tired and laid down on the 
sofa. He crawled down beside me and I began to tell 
a story. Then I went to sleep and as I dreamt I 
told him my dream. He began to laugh and laughed so 
heartily that I woke up. He said it was an awful funny 
story. Here are some of the stories I told him. 

Reineke Fuchs. 

On the top of a hill under a heap of stones in Wil¬ 
liams Township lived Reineke Fuchs with his wife and 
four children. The children were named Junior, 
Wrinkles, Snorky and Loppy. Junior was the oldest and 
Loppy the youngest. 

Reineke and Mamma Fuchs had dug a hole under 
a big stone which kept off the rain. If you had gone in 

















































144 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VALLEY 


you would have called it a smelly place, but the Fuchses 
were not hard to please. They were hungry all the time 
and they only wanted to keep warm and dry and have 
enough to eat. Everyday old Reineke had to go out to 
hunt and bring home things to eat for Mrs. Fuchs and 
the children. They were all fond of chicken—not cooked 
chicken but raw chicken—stolen from some farmer, for 
Reineke and the other Fuchses did not know it was bad 
to steal and kill and eat chickens, so they went on doing 
it just as if they had the right. 

Old Reineke was a very sly old fox. He had a 
beautiful tail with a bush of wavy hair on the end. While 
the children were young he had to hunt alone for 
Mamma Fuchs must stay at home and mind the kiddies. 
When they grew older they all went together; but I will 
tell you about them. 

Reineke and the Rabbits. 

One day Mrs. Fuchs said to Reineke: “My dear, 
we are all very hungry and it is time you get something 
to eat,” but Reineke said he was too sleepy yet. This 
made Mrs. Fuchs very cross; she said: “I do believe you 
are getting fat and lazy.” “No,” said Reineke, “I am 
tired chasing rabbits and being chased by the dogs.” 
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Reineke, “You will have to go 
for there is nothing in the house to eat.” Pretty soon 
Reineke got tired of being scolded and ran out of the 


TEEEING STORIES 


145 


door. His eyes were sore, for he had not had enough 
sleep. Far down in the valley he heard a dog bark. 
Dogs do not like foxes, and when they smell or see one 
they run after it and bite it if they can catch it. But 
neither do the foxes like dogs and they mostly manage 



to get away—but they get caught once in a while. So 
when Reineke heard the dogs bark he stuck up his long 
ears and kept quiet. “Pooh,” he said “that dog is too 
far off to hurt.” So he stole through the bushes quietly 
looking for a rabbit; for if you want to catch a rabbit 
you must go quietly or it will hear you and run away. 
Now when Reineke hunted rabbits he always hunted 
up the wind; that is, he always walked so the wind blew 
towards him. In this way he could smell the rabbit but 
the rabbit could not smell him. Presently Reineke 






















































146 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VARREY 


smelled a rabbit. He looked very sharply and saw its 
ears sticking up above a clump of grass. So he stole up 
quietly and when he was close enough he jumped on the 
rabbit and bit it a hard bite on the back. The rabbit 



gave a loud squeak and fell down dead. Then Reineke 
found he was hungry, so he pulled the skin off and ate 
the rabbit till there was not a tiny bit left. Then he 
began to feel sleepy and crawled under a bush and went 
to sleep. When he woke up it was nearly dark and he 
knew it must be time to go home. So he went on further 
and very soon he caught another rabbit. He slung this 
over his back and trotted up the hill to his den. When 
he got home he found the little foxes were all crying, 
for they were very hungry. But as soon as they had 
eaten the rabbit they felt better and soon fell asleep. 
But Mrs. Reineke sat and looked at him. “How is it, 
my dear,” she said, “that you did not eat any rabbit?” 





















TEXUNG STORIES 


147 


"Oh, I’m not very hungry,” said Reineke, “and I knew 
you and the cubs were.” “Pooh,” said Mrs. Reineke “I 
believe you caught something and ate it;” but Reineke 
made believe he was asleep. 

Reineke Catches a Chicken. 

Down in the valley lived farmer John Swartz who 
raised chickens. There was a hen house on his farm built 
of boards and in it he kept his chickens. There were 
about fifty hens and two biddies. One biddy had a red 
top knot and the other had only one eye. He was 
afraid of the one with the red top knot for they fought 
one day and red top knot picked his eye out and ran away. 

Reineke was fond of chicken and he often sneaked 
to the edge of the woods and watched the chickens chas¬ 
ing bugs in the grass. Sometimes they would get one 
with a bad taste, but mostly they tasted good. He 
thought maybe the chickens would come in the woods so 
he could catch them but they were afraid. One night 
he was so very hungry he stole down to the hen house 
under the edge inside. There was red top sitting on the 
roost fast asleep, dreaming of grasshoppers. Reineke 
reached up and grabbed him by the leg and red top gave 
a loud squawk. But Reineke bit him on the neck and he 
fell over dead. The other chickens began to cackle but 
Reineke threw red head over his back and trotted off to 
his den. My, what a feast the foxes all had. In the 


148 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARUFY 


morning one of the hens said to one eye: “Where is my 
dear red top ?” But one eye closed his good eye and said: 
“I don’t see him anywhere.” 

Reineke and the Farmer. 

John Swartz was very cross when he found the hole 
under the hen house and red top gone. He told Mrs. 
Swartz he was going to set a steel trap and catch Rein¬ 
eke. “Well,” she said, “L would wait till I caught him 
if I were you. He is pretty smart I think!” Now Mr. 
Swartz had a yellow pup dog. This dog didn’t know 
much but thought he was very smart. He did not hear 
very well and he did not smell very well but still he 
thought he was very smart. That night Farmer Swartz 
fastened a string to the limb of an apple tree over the hen 
house. Then he made a loop in the end and pulled the 
limb down. The loop was put around the hole Reineke 
had made. Then he brought the yellow pup and made 
him smell the hole. When he snuffed he smelled the 
fox and began to yap. But the farmer told him to keep 
quiet. 

That night Reineke felt hungry again and crept 
down to the edge of the woods to have a look. The wind 
blew towards him from the house so he could smell the 
pup, but the pup could not smell him, besides he was 
sleepy. Then Reineke sneaked down to the hen house. 
The moon was up and he could see pretty well. The very 


TELLING STORIES 


149 


first thing he saw was the noose. “Hey,” he said, “if 
I’m not careful I’ll get caught.” He sat and thought a 
bit. Then he ran to the back of the hen house and 
scratched another hole. The hens heard him scratching 
and began to cackle. This woke up the yellow pup, who 
ran to the hole the farmer had shown him. He got part 
way through but his hind foot caught in the noose which 
closed around it and the apple branch lifted him in the 
air. There he hung yelping. Old Reineke grabbed one 
of the hens quickly, threw her over his back and made 
off up the hill. And that night all the little foxes said: 
“Oh, yum, yum, isn’t chicken good?” and Mrs. Reineke 
thought so too. John Swartz was very mad. Mrs. 
Swartz said nothing—only she laughed. She didn’t 
want to make John mad so she went behind the door and 
laughed. 

How the Dogs Chased Reineke . 

Down in the valley two dogs lived. They were 
named Towser and Dick. They spent most of their time 
hunting rabbits and often caught and ate one. They were 
pretty fierce dogs and ran very fast. Reineke was afraid 
of them. They had often chased him but he always man¬ 
aged to get away. One day he was hunting rabbits too. 
You must know that when a fox runs any place he al¬ 
ways leaves a smell on the ground. While the dogs weie 
hunting they crossed one of the smelly places where 


150 OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAUFFY 

Reineke had been. “Wow! Wow!” said Towser. Pretty 
soon Dick smelled it too and he began to bark, wow, 
wow. Then they ran along the smelly place where Rein¬ 
eke had been. Pretty soon they got near enough so he 
could hear them and his long ears stood up straight listen¬ 
ing. He shivered all over, for he knew they were after 
him, and he began to run. Pretty soon he came to a little 
creek, and he ran into it and up the creek; all the way 
he kept in the water. Pretty soon he came to a big flat 
stone. Then he made a big jump and landed away to one 
side of the bushes, and ran away home. 

When the dogs reached the creek they could not 
smell Reineke any more for the water had washed all 
the smell away. So they sniffed around awhile and then 
went home. 

The Pear Tree. 

Once upon a time there lived a little boy whose 
mamma was very poor. They lived in a little cottage on 
the edge of a great woods. Many trees grew about the 
house which was so shaded that it could scarcely be 
seen from the road. Often this little boy had hardly 
enough to eat and his clothes were very shabby, but they 
were always clean; his stockings were always darned 
and his face and hands were washed very often. He was 
very fond of his mamma and it made him feel sad when 
she cried. She often cried because she did not know how 


TEXTING STORIES 


151 

to get enough for them to eat. One day she said to him, 
“never mind my dear, pretty soon the fruit will be ripe 
and then we can eat it.” So the little boy went out to 
look at the fruit. There was a beautiful pear tree just 
in front of the house, and as he looked up he could see 
the tiny pears fastened by their stems to the branches. 
Every day he went out and looked up at the pears. 
Slowly they grew larger, but very slowly. After many 
many days he went out one morning and looked up. He 
thought that one of the pears looked yellow, so he went 









































152 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARFFY 


in and told his mother. “Yes,” his mother said, “I be¬ 
lieve it is getting ripe;” then he watched it more care¬ 
fully still. Finally his mother brought out the step 
ladder and the little boy got up and picked the pear. 

“You take the first bite,” said he. 

“Very well,” said his mother, 
so she took the first bite. 

Then he took the second bite. 

And she took the third bite. 

And he took the fourth bite. 

And she took the fifth bite. 

And he took the sixth bite. 

And she took the seventh bite. 

And he took the eighth bite. 

And she took the ninth bite. 

And he took the tenth bite. 

And she took the eleventh bite. 

And he took the twelfth bite. 

And she took the thirteenth bite. 

And he took the fourteenth bite. 

And she took the fifteenth bite. 

And he took the sixteenth bite. 

And she took the seventeenth bite. 

And he took the eighteenth bite. 

And she took the nineteenth bite. 

And he took the twentieth bite. 


TEEEING STORIES 


153 


But who took the twenty-first bite? Nobody. How 
many bites do you think there are in a pear, anyhow ? 

The Sun and the Stars. 

When the sun 
Goes fast asleep, 

The little stars 
Begin to peep. 

When the sun 

Comes out to play, 

The little stars 
All run away. 

Little Folks. 

In all the world 

There is no sight so beautiful, 

As little children bright and clean 
And dutiful. 

The little ringlets round the peachy cheeks, 

The eyes so clear and shiny, 

I like them very much indeed 
When they’re not whiney. 

The Story of Joshua Grew. 

Joshua lived in 32nd Street on the East Side in New 
York. He had lived there from boyhood with his father 
who was a retired sea captain. Mary Grew, Joshua’s 


154 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


aunt, lived with them. She cooked for them, darned 
their stockings, nursed Joshua and his father when they 
were sick, and was just as kind as she could be. Joshua 
was very fond of her, and showed it by being very 
naughty—for he was a boy, and thoughtless. 

Of course Joshua was interested in the sea, all boys 
are more or less interested in ships, and Joshua was more 
interested than most boys because he had heard so much 
about them. His father talked about his ships whenever 
he could get anyone to listen, and Joshua was a good 
listener. Joshua could tell you the difference between a 
ship, a barque and a brig. He knew a schooner and a 
sharpie by sight, and knew the names of many ships that 
anchored in the nearby slips, even at a good distance. 

Joshua did not like school. He had even played 
hooky to avoid it; but his father had used some sort of 
persuasion afterward that convinced Joshua that it was 
best, on the whole, to go to school regularly and not try 
to play hooky any more. I wonder how his father per¬ 
suaded him, don’t you? But on Saturdays and Sundays 
you would find him at the docks, talking with the sail¬ 
ors, or the officers if they had time to yarn, and as I said, 
he was a good listener, and people who like to tell 
wonderful stories love good listeners; so Joshua heard 
many wonderful tales. They do say that some of the 
tales the sailors told him were awful lies, but Joshua 


TELUNG STORIES 


155 


didn't care a rap. He wanted to hear stories and he did 
not care a fig whether they were true stories or made up 
stories. So there he sat, on a cask or a spar by the river 
side, day after day, listening to the sailor’s yarns about 
China and the yellow skinned Chinamen with their slant¬ 
ing eyes, or the little men of Japan with their straight 
black hair, or the wicked Malays of the South Sea who 
boarded the ships that came that way and murdered the 
crews and passengers. And he heard about foreign lands 
and strange peoples; of whale fishing and the frozen 
seas to the north and south; of the Sargasso sea, where 
the seaweed lies thick on the water and the ships must 
slowly plough their way through the tangle. He longed 
to see these things and he begged his father and aunt 
Mary to let him go on a voyage so that he might see 
some of these wonders with 
his own eyes; but they always 
said: “you are too little, some 
day you can go but not now, 
you are too small.” 

Now Joshua did not believe 
this; he thought he w T as a very 
big boy, and often, when they 
were not looking, he would 
stand up next the door and 
make a pencil mark on the door 


















OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


156 

jamjb just above his head. It took a long time to grow 
big; but when he was fourteen he began to grow fast, 
and aunt Mary said: “My, Joshua, I have a hard time to 
keep you in clothes, you are growing like a weed.” 

There was a sailor who came on one of the ships 
called Big Mike Brady. He was a very rough sailor, and 
he swore a great deal. Joshua knew him, but he was not 



very fond of Mike. Now. Mike had once sailed on Cap¬ 
tain Grew’s ship and he had tried to be saucy to Captain 
Grew. Captain Grew knocked him down with a hand¬ 
spike. Mike had a very sore head and spent a day in his 
berth. Instead of saying to himself, as a fine sailor 
should do, “well, you were saucy and got what was com- 















TKLUNG STORIES 


157 


ing to you,” Mike vowed he would get even with Captain 
Grew if it took him a life-time. So he got to know 
Joshua and talked to him a great deal and told him won¬ 
derful stories. 

One day as Joshua wandered along the wharf he met 
Mike who said to him “our ship sails for Hong Kong to¬ 
morrow ; how would you like to go along?” “I’d love to 
go,” said Joshua, “but my father says I’m too little.” 
“Pooh,” said Mike, “you are nearly as big as your 
daddy.” Now, this was true, and of course Joshua knew 
it. He had grown so fast that he was now a big boy with 
long arms and legs, but they were not yet very strong, 
“If you want to go,” said Mike, “I’ll stow you away and 
you can come out when we are out of sight of land.” 
This was too tempting, and Joshua agreed to go. So Mike 
took a tag from his pocket and on it he wrote: “Sigger 
and Woof, Hong Kong.” Then he laid Joshua on the 
ground and wrapped him up in a tarpaulin which he tied 
with several strings. To one of these he fastened the 
tag and threw Joshua, thus tied up in a long bundle, 
over his shoulder and carried him past the guard and 
into the hold of the ship. Here he untied the bundle 
when no one was looking, said “beat it!” to Joshua, and 
threw the tarpaulin back of some boxes. Joshua climbed 
over some bales and crouched behind one of them. Boxes 
and bundles came into the hold until there was no more 


158 OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARLFY 

room. Then the ship began to move, slowly at first, then 
more rapidly; then she began to swing up and down and 
to wriggle until Joshua grew uneasy and then very sick. 
He finally vomited, and for awhile felt better. Then he 
grew sick again; finally he fell asleep and dreamed a 
dreadful dream of a yellow-eyed Chinese pirate who came 
at him with a long crooked knife. As the Chinaman 
came nearer his eyes grew larger till there was no face 
left, only eyes. Then the eye nearest to him burst with a 
loud bang. This woke Joshua. He found he had fallen 
between two boxes and wedged himself fast. By hard 
work he managed to get loose and crawl on the top of 
the boxes and barrels. He felt better and began to get 
hungry. But there was nothing to eat, and he concluded 
that he must get to a place where there was something to 
eat. So he crawled over the boxes to a place under the 
hatch, and with a piece of board pulled from one of the 
boxes he began to hammer on the hatch and raised such 
a row that two sailors were sent to take off the hatch and 
see what was wrong. When they lifted the hatch there 
sat Joshua crouched down, with mussed hair and dirty 
clothes. “Git out o’ here ye dirty stowaway,” said one 
of the sailors, “and come along o’ me to the Captain.” 
Now the Captain was a pretty rough customer and when 
the sailor brought Joshua into his cabin he said: “An¬ 
other stowaway, heh! you’ll be sorry, young feller. Take 


TEUJNG STORIES 


159 


him away, Jack, give him something to eat and make him 
work; do you hear? make him work!” Jack was a kind- 
hearted sailor but he did not dare disobey, so he took 
Joshua to the cook who grumbled but finally gave him 



some grub; then he showed him a hammock in the fore¬ 
castle and set him to scrubbing off the deck with a holy 
stone. A holy stone is a block of sandstone fastened to 
a handle. One of the sailors rubbed the deck with this 
while another washed the dirt off with a hose. Joshua 
found this very hard work and his back and arms ached 
long before he was through. That night he was wakened 
by a gruff voice saying: “git out o’ my hammock you dirty 
little whelp.” It was Big Mike. Joshua explained that 
































i6o 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARRFY 


it was his hammock and Big Mike kicked him and drove 
him out of the forecastle and over the deck until the mate 
drove them both below. Then Big Mike gave him an¬ 
other shower of kicks, and went off muttering and growl¬ 
ing. Never a day passed after this that Joshua did not 
get some blows from Big Mike, who was glad to get even 
with Captain Grew by beating his son. Finally this got 
so bad that Jack told Big Mike to let Joshua alone. 
Mike was a coward and afraid, so Joshua had a better 
time when the sailors were around, but when no one was 
near Big Mike would still beat him. Many and many a 
time when he ached from hard work and wicked blows 
he thought of his father and aunt Mary, and vowed that 
if he ever got back he would never go to sea again. 

Joshua found the sea a very lonesome place. Every 
day was like the day before; there was nothing new to 
see and hard work all the time. But he grew big and 
strong and ceased to fear Big Mike, for now the sailors 
began to call him Big Josh. He was over six feet tall and 
weighed 200 pounds. Big Mike ceased to persecute him, 
for he was too strong to make it safe. 

It was a long voyage. First the ship stopped at 
Rio de Janeiro, where she stayed three days. Then at 
Buenos Ayres, and then around Cape Horn. Here it 
was very cold and Joshua had no warm clothes so that 
he nearly froze. Jack gave him a pea jacket, but his 


TELLING STORIES 


161 


shoes were worn in holes and he was wet most of the 
time. Finally the ship’s head was pointed to the north 
and slowly the weather grew warmer. 

I wish I could tell you of the sights Joshua saw in 
Hong Kong, the forest of ships and the' odd looking 
Chinamen and women with their pig tails and the queer 
looking carts the people ride in. Finally the cargo was 
discharged and new cargo taken in and they started for 
home. It took them nearly three months to get back to 
New York. They had started from New York in the 
spring and now it was fall. Joshua had a better time 
coming home than going out, for he was now a member 
of the crew and drew wages with which he bought some 
warm clothes and strong shoes. 

When he walked up to his father’s house there was 
crape on the door. His aunt Mary was dead. How 
glad his father was to see him, and how badly they felt 
to think that he should never see his aunt Mary again. 


CHAPTER XXI 

The Poisons of the Soil 

In Farmers' Bulletin No. 257, published in 1906, 
Milton Whitney advances the idea that the growing 
plant throws off poisonous substances which accumulate 
in the soil so that, as Lawes and Gilbert found, after 
growing potatoes on the same field for fifteen years it 
would not grow potatoes at all, but on being seeded with 
barley it gave seventy-five bushels. This shows that the 
poison excreted by one crop is not necessarily poisonous to 
another. The subsoil, he tells us, is sometimes poisonous ; 
and deep subsoil plowing sometimes destroys the fertility 
of the soil which is not recovered for several years; a 
gentleman’s lawn which had been covered by an em¬ 
bankment for several years had become poisoned, and 
after being uncovered grass would no longer grow, the 
water running down tree trunks is often poisonous to 
grass growing near the 1 trunk; muck, also, is often poi¬ 
sonous unless allowed to weather. All this, he points out, 
might have been predicted, for plants, like animals, must 
throw off excreta which must be disposed of, and while 
the extreme tip of the root is naked the older portion is 
covered with a corky covering which prevents the absorp¬ 
tion of this poisonous material. We know that in nitrify¬ 
ing beds the nitrifying organism dies unless lime is 
added to combine with and neutralize the nitric acid as 


THE) POISONS OF THE) SOIL 163 

it forms; and he might have added that the yeast plant 

and mother of vinegar ceases to function as the products 
of their activity—alcohol and acetic acid—increase in 

amount. 

In 1908 Shreiner and Shovey discovered one of the 
poisonous substances to be dihydroxystearic acid. This 

is a derivative of an acid contained in beef tallow. It is 
white when pure, melts at 98°-99° C. and is slightly 
soluble in cold and somewhat readily in hot water. It 
was found in 33 per cent of all soils examined and in all 
the infertile soils examined, in some cases to the extent 
of 200 pounds per acre foot. It was poisonous to plants.* 
Since then, in 1911,** Schreiner and Lathrop report the 
separation of a large number of organic substances from 
soils, some of which are beneficial, some harmless and 
some harmful. In 1913 Shreiner and Skinner isolated 
salicylic aldehyde from infertile soils and proved that 
it was harmful. 

This work, like much other work of benefit to man¬ 
kind was interrupted by the most cruel and destructive 
war the world has ever known. Let us hope it may be 
resumed and this question thoroughly examined—but 
enough is already known to show that in this conjecture 
Whitney was correct; and this marks a distinct and im¬ 
portant advance in our knowledge of the soil. 

*J. Amer. Chem. $oc., 30, 1599. 

** J. Frank. Inst ., X72, 145. 


CHAPTER XXII 

The Soil Bacteria 

The study of the soil flora has attracted a great deal 
of attention of recent years. I have already told how it 
has solved some known facts before unexplained. It 
has been found that many organisms are contained in the 
soil which convert the atmospheric nitrogen into proteids 
or at least into some nitrogen compound capable of being 
converted into proteids. Other organisms are known 
capable of transforming ammonia into nitrous acid and 
nitrous into nitric acid. Urea is split into ammonia and 
carbon dioxide by still other forms of life, and even cellu¬ 
lose is acted upon and dissolved. The sum of what we do 
not know is still, however, very large. 

One class of organized life that deserves more atten¬ 
tion than it has thus far received is that which acts by 
splitting up nitrogen compounds and setting free the 
nitrogen. These clearly belong to the class of weeds 
which have been properly defined as plants out of place. 
Because these weeds are unseen is all the more reason 
why we must identify them and find means for their de¬ 
struction. In all probability we shall also find that some 
of them also excrete dihydroxystearic acid, salicylic 
aldehyde and the other soil poisons. 

A beginning appears to have been made in 1912 at 
Rothamsted. On May 24 of that year A. D. Hall of 


THE SOIL BACTERIA 


165 

Rothamsted lectured before the Royal Institution on this 
subject. He shows by a detail of experiments carried 
out at Rothamsted that in a field which has had no man¬ 
ure for sixty-nine years and raised as many crops of wheat 
the yield decreased from 17.2 to 14.5 bushels in twenty- 
eight years, and has since slowly decreased to 12 bushels 
(which is the world average for wheat) has in thirty-nine 
years lost no pounds per acre of nitrogen which must 
have been released by these bacteria. 

In a second plot manured with farmyard manure the 
yield rose in twenty-eight years from 28 to 36 bushels, 
since which there has been no increase. In thirty-nine 
years this plot lost from the same cause 5,460 pounds 
nitrogen. 

He shows that on fallow soil the gain of nitrogen 
per acre was 92 pounds and that in land given over to a 
rotation of turnips, barley, clover and wheat the nitrogen 
in the soil slowly increased, while the yield also slowly 
improved. 

The net result has been, that at Rothamsted only 
about one-fourth the nitrogen contained in the manure 
is returned in the crop while three-fourths is destroyed 
by these bacterial weeds. This is a very serious state of 
affairs for all farmers. 

When a new form of sickness appears the first 


1 66 OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 

thing necessary to a cure is the discovery of the cause. 
Here we have the discovery of both the disease and the 
cause. 

The second thing necessary is the proper prevent¬ 
ive measures. In this case it is clearly the destruction of 
these weeds. But how shall we destroy them without 
interfering with the comfort and prosperity of those 
bacteria which benefit us ? On this point Mr. Hall says: 

“I can only briefly say that by putting the soil 
through various processes of partial sterilization such as 
heating or treatment with antiseptics, like chloroform or 
toluene, we can eliminate certain organisms which keep 
in check the useful bacteria in the soil— i. e., the bacteria 
which break down the nitrogen compounds to the state of 
ammonia, a form assimilable by plants. Heating the soil 
to the temperature of boiling water for two hours will 
double its productivity, and such a process has been found 
to be commercially profitable in the case of greenhouse 
soils. The market growers of cucumbers and tomatoes 
make up an exceptional rich soil of virgin loam and 
stable manure, but in a few years such soil, while still 
enormously rich on analysis, becomes incapable of grow¬ 
ing a profitable crop. The partial sterilization processes 
of which I have been speaking restore and even enhance 


the: soil bacteria 


167 


its fertility by eliminating the injurious organisms, and 
we learn from the detailed results that after such treat¬ 
ment a much larger percentage of the soil nitrogen is 
recoverable in the crop than normally prevails in un¬ 
treated soil.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 

On Luck in Farming 

F COURSE there is such a 
thing as luck in any occu¬ 
pation, equally so in farm¬ 
ing. When luck is men¬ 
tioned in this connection you 
will have noticed that bad 
luck is the kind usually re¬ 
ferred to. I have carefully 
studied a good many cases of alleged bad luck and have 
nearly always found something else bad in addition; for 
example: 

(1) One of my neighbors lost a cow by bloating. 
She broke into a patch of alfalfa, ate her fill, swelled up 
and died; here a bad fence was to blame. 

(2) Another neighbor’s corn came up badly and he 
had to replant most of it. The trouble was ultimately 
located in the corn planter which was only dropping an 
occasional grain. For a long time he declared the seed 
corn had hung in a cold loft and frozen too hard. 

(3) The potatoes did not come up properly and this 
was followed by a drouth; result was few potatoes; yet 
my potatoes grown in an adjoining field and cultivated 
every week gave a fair crop. I never did find out just 
what was bad in this case, but it was only partly bad 
luck. 





ON LUCK IN FARMING 


169 


(4) The weather was very rainy and most of the 
wheat did not dry out after reaping. Much of it black¬ 
ened, sprouted and became worthless. Those who saved 
their wheat, carefully considered when to cut it, cut a little 
at a time which was rushed under cover as soon as pos¬ 
sible and the drying finished there. This was extra 
good management. Those who lost their grain managed 
not so well. 



(5) My first crop of alfalfa this year was raised 
on the lot at Glendon and was cut early in the morning 
and hauled the next afternoon. Not a drop of water 
touched it but had I not chosen my time carefully and 
spurred the men to work overtime the hay would not 
have been so good. 

The year before, my neighbor’s oats was musty. 
Mine was not for very much the same reason. 

And so I might go on indefinitely. It is noticeable 
that the men who seldom talk about their bad luck usually 
are most diligent, get their crops in on time, keep them 
clean and reap the richest harvests. 


170 


OUR farm in cedar vaeeey 


As Spurgeon has it quoting from Thomas Tusser: 

“He who by the plough would thrive 
Himself must either hold or drive.” 

and again : 

“Set a stout heart to a stiff hill and the wagon will 
get to the top of it, there’s nothing so hard but a harder 
thing will get through it; a strong job can be managed 
by a strong resolution. Have at it and have it. Stick 
to it and succeed. Till a thing is done men wonder that 
you think it can be done, and when you have done it they 
wonder it was never done before. 

“Rome was not built in a day, nor much else unless 
it be a dog kennel. Things which cost no pains are 
slender gains. Where there has been little sweat there 
will be little sweet. Jonah’s gourd came up in a night 
but then it perished in a night. Light come, light go; 
that which flies in one window will likely fly out at 
another. It’s a very lean hare that hounds catch with¬ 
out running for it, and a sheep that is no trouble to 
shear has very little wool. For this reason a man who 
cannot push on against wind and weather stands a very 
poor chance in this world. 

“Perseverance is the main thing in life. To hold 
on, and hold out to the end is the chief matter. If the race 
could be won by a spurt thousands would wear the blue 


ON LUCK IN FARMING 


171 

ribbon; but they are short winded and pull up after the 
first gallop. They begin with flying and end in crawling 
backward. When it comes to collar work many horses 
turn to jibbing. If the apples do not fall at the first 
shake of the tree your hasty folks are too lazy to fetch a 
ladder, and in too much of a hurry to wait until the 
fruit is ripe enough to fall of itself. The hasty man is as 
hot as fire at the outset and as cold as ice at the end. 
He is like the Irishman’s saucepan, which had many good 
points about it, but it had no bottom. He who cannot 
bear the burden and heat of the day is not worth his 
salt, much less his potatoes.” 

I have been a teacher, a manufacturing chemist, a 
chemical engineer, a printer and publisher, an editor and 
a farmer. Neither of these callings requires more work 
and more brain than the farmer requires to get good 
crops and sell them properly. I am persuaded that good 
farming owes much more to management than to luck. 
As Tusser puts it: 

“What pleasant groves, what goodly fields 

What fruitful hills and vales have we! 

How sweet an air our climate yields! 

How blest with flocks and herds we be! 

How milk and honey doth o’erflow! 

How safe from ravenous beasts we go! 

And oh how free from poisonous things! 


172 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAL,L,E)Y 


“For these and for our grass, our corn; 
For all that springs from blade or bough; 
For all those blessings that adorn 
Both wood and field this kingdom through; 
For all of these thy praise we sing; 

And humbly, Lord, entreat thee too, 

That fruit to thee we forth may bring, 

As unto us thy creatures do.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 

Future Food Production 

In these United States the era of exploration with its 
extravagant practices has passed and we must settle down 
to an era of development. The clearing of the land must 
be completed; the fertility of the soil must be restored 
to the point at which it was left after the forests had 
been removed, and the best modern methods of cultiva¬ 
tion and marketing must be resorted to. 

No one can foresee the future completely, but some 
things we can foresee in part. It is clear that our farm¬ 
ing methods in thickly settled regions must be selected 
and intensified if we are to prosper. Because of the 
scarcity and high price of labor our progress has been 
in the direction of low labor cost per unit of product. 
By developing farm machinery we have greatly increased 
the production capacity of one man as measured in 
bushels of wheat for example. According to figures com¬ 
piled by my friend William Frear* it cost $3.71 to pro¬ 
duce an acre of wheat in 1830 and 72 cents in 1896. An 
acre of barley cost $3.59 in 1830 and 60 cents in 1896, 
and an acre of oats cost $3.73 in 1830 and in 1893, $1.07. 
In 1880 one male worker produced crops to the value of 
$286.82 and in 1900, $454.37. With the rise in wages 
brought about by the war the disproportion will be much 

* Encyclopedia Britannica, nth Ed., I, p. 416. 


174 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


increased, for wages to-day have more than doubled and 
since a good farm hand will cost at least $1,000 per 
annum we must get at least $1,500 from his product to 
make farming pay. In nearly every other crop grown the 
cost has decreased in somewhat similar proportion, but 
the other matters have been allowed to slide. Only in 
a few instances has full progress been made. 

In England the average crop of wheat is 28 bushels, 
ours is 12. A part of this difference may be due to 
climate. It is known that this is true for other crops 
such as potatoes. In the Netherlands, the average yield 
of the tuber is given as 311 bushels; in Belgium 388, in 
Great Britain and Ireland 210, in Germany 200, in France 
130 in Hungary 115, in Russia 106, while in Maine 206 
bushels and in the whole United States 96 bushels were 
grown.** 

The effect of soil moisture and temperature upon this 
latter crop is shown by results from last year’s and this 
year’s planting in Cedar Valley. Last year was wet 
and cool and my potato crop was enormous. This year 
we had a hot dry spell of seven weeks in June. I planted 
twice the average area and will get perhaps two-thirds 
as many potatoes; but this is remediable. Water may be 
and will be stored, and I expect to have no more serious 
losses of this particular sort then. 

** Gilbert, “The Potato,” p. 87. 


future food production 


175 


In 1898 speaking at Bristol as President of the 
British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sir 
William Crookes called attention to some serious sides 
of the food supply, and especially as this affected the 
United Kingdom. At that time the consumption of home 
grown wheat amounted to 60,000,000 bushels while 
180,000,000 bushels was imported, an average of six 
bushels per capita. The total increased consumption per 
annum due to increase of population was 2,000,000 
bushels. 

He then showed that the home growing of sufficient 
wheat to feed the population would require 13,000 square 
miles which was about the acreage devoted to all cereal 
crops in the United Kingdom. The world’s production 
of wheat at the time was nearly 2,000,000,000 bushels 
which has since increased to about 3,000,000,000 which 
is the consumption he predicted for 1921. He went on 
to show that this increase might be brought about by the 
additional use of nitrate of soda. This nitrate of soda 
in Chile was, however, in limited supply and would soon 
be exhausted and some method of supplying additional 
fixed atmospheric nitrogen must be invented. Since 
then three such methods have been put to work: 

(1) Nitric acid is made by several processes all 
alike in principle. 


176 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARUFY 


(2) Calcium cyanamide is made by passing nitrogen 
over heated calcium carbide. 

(3) Nitrogen and hydrogen form ammonia at high 
temperatures and pressures. 

It is doubtful, however, whether this source of in¬ 
crease has been of much avail. Sir William neglected 
to show how much additional land could be made to pro¬ 
duce, and this has probably had most to do with the in¬ 
creased production. 

I think we need be under no great anxiety about 
our ability to produce food enough for our growing 
population for many years to come. As the population 
increases the growing of other crops such as potatoes, 
beans, peas and other meat-replacing crops will in¬ 
crease while the amount of labor devoted to their produc¬ 
tion will give a much larger yield; for it is inconceiv¬ 
able that in the future a larger proportion of the popula¬ 
tion shall not cultivate the soil. In this country the per¬ 
centage of drones living in cities and towns has become 
far too large and may cause trouble. Idleness or sloth¬ 
fulness increases if unchecked and is a sure disease- 
breeder. The so-called “high standard of living” of this 
land is in large part only a misnomer for wastefulness 
and poor efficiency of various sorts. 

At the present time we have in the United States 
fully 800,000,000 acres of farming land of which at least 


FUTURE FOOD PRODUCTION 


177 


half is in actual cultivation and it is probable that 
1,000,000,000 is not an overstatement of the actual pos¬ 
sible area capable of cultivation by intensive farming. 
If we allow 10 acres to a family of five we shall have a 
possible population of 500,000,000 souls. There are many 
signs showing that the rate of population increase of the 
nation is decreasing and that this rate is becoming pro¬ 
gressively less. In view of all the facts, therefore, I 
am not losing any sleep on the probability of starvation, 
but I am concerned lest by false ideals and lazy propen¬ 
sities we lose the natural economic health. 


CHAPTER XXV 

Humus 

According to Webster, quoting from Graham, humus 
is that portion of the soil formed by the decay of animal 
or vegetable matter, but not all the organic residue is 
humus according to more recent authorities; and by com¬ 
mon consent only that portion is now called humus which 
dissolves in weak alkaline liquids after the soil has first 
been treated with acid in order to liberate the humus 
from combination with lime and other bases. 

In an effort to discover what humus really is Snyder* 
mixed cow manure, green clover, meat scraps, wheat 
flour, oat straw, sawdust, and sugar with soil nearly free 
from organic matter in the proportion of 200 grains 
material to 3,000 grains soil, placed the mixture in a 
tight box and allowed it to undergo humus formation out 
of doors for a year. The soil was then treated with 
diluted hydrochloric acid and then with 3 per cent caus¬ 
tic potash solution. From this solution the humus was 
precipitated with hydrochloric acid, washed, dried and 
analyzed. His results were as follows in per cents: 



Cow 

manure 

Green 

clover 

Meat 

scraps 

Wheat 

flour 

Oat 

straw 

Saw¬ 

dust 

Sugar 

Carbon 

41.95 

54.22 

48.77 

51-02 

54.80 

49.28 

57.84 

Hydrogen 

6.26 

3-40 

4.30 

3-82 

2.48 

3-33 

3-04 

Nitrogen 

6.16 

8.24 

IO.96 

IO.96 

2.50 

0.32 

0.08 

Oxygen 

45.63 

34-14 

35-97 

35.07 

40.72 

47.07 

39-04 


100.00 

100.00 

100.00 

100.00 

100.00 

100.00 

100.00 


* Journal Amer. Chem. Soc ., 1897, 19 , 738. 


( 
















HUMUS 


179 


Highest I/rwest Difference 

per cent t>er cent per cent 


Carbon 57-84 Sugar 41-95 Cow manure 15.89 

Hydrogen 6.26 Cow manure 2.48 Oat straw 3.78 

Nitrogen 10.96 Meat scraps 0.08 Sugar 10.88 

Oxygen 47.07 Sawdust 34-14 Green clover 12.93 


These analyses, however, appear not to have been 
calculated upon the basis of the material actually analyzed 
but only upon that of the organic part for he tells us that 
the precipitates always gave an ash on burning, the 
average composition of which was: 


Per cent 


Insoluble in hydrochloric acid . 61.97 

Potash . 7-50 

Soda . 8.13 

Lime . 0.09 

Magnesia . 0.36 

Alumina . 3-48 

Ferric (iron) oxide . 3.12 

Phosphoric acid . 12.37 

Sulphuric acid . 0.98 

Carbon dioxide . 1.64 


I have put the word average in italics because it 
seems a pity that he did not give the full analysis from 
each variety. 

Snyder finds that the humus from the different 
sources changes in its content of phosphoric acid and 
potash as follows: 
















i8o 


OUR EARM IN CEDAR VAEUEY 


Humic phosphoric 
acid, grains 


Humic potash, 
grains 


Cow manure humus 


Original soil and manure 

1.17 

1.06 

Final humus product 

1.62 

1.27 

Green clover humus 

Original soil and clover 

3 - 2 i 

5 26 

Final humus product 

3-74 

4-93 

Meat scraps humus 

Original soil and meat scraps 
Final humus product 

1.07 

0.25 

1.18 

0.36 

Sawdust humus 

Original soil and sawdust 

0.85 

0.67 

Final humus product 

0.78 

0.70 

Flour humus 

Original soil and flour 

0.60 

0.32 

Final humus product 

0.71 

0.48 

Oat straw humus 

Original soil and straw 

1.02 

2.42 

Final humus product 

1.03 

2.41 


These tables show, allowing for inevitable errors, 
that when soils are treated as described the humus with¬ 
draws considerable silica, alumina, and ferric oxide and 
practically all the phosphoric acid and potash. I have 
questioned the silica and alumina because the method 
of analysis employed makes it easy to obtain erroneous 
results on these substances. 

Snyder made a number of analyses of humus ob¬ 
tained from soils as follows: 

No. i Average of 8 rich prairie soils. 

No. 2 Soil under cultivation for years. 

No. 3 Soil never cultivated. 

No. 4 Same as 3 cultivated 40 years to small grains. 




HUMUS 


181 


The figures are in percentages. 



(1) 

(2) 

(3) 

( 4 ) 

Carbon 

45 -i 2 

48.16 

44.12 

50.10 

Hydrogen 

3-67 

540 

6.00 

4.80 

Nitrogen 

10.37 

9.12 

8.12 

6-54 

Oxygen 

28.60 

33-i6 

35.i6 

33-68 

Ash 

12.24 

4.16 

6.60 

4.90 

No analyses of this ash are 

given. 



Snyder thinks the agricultural value of the humus 
depends on its content in nitrogen. But it is well known 
that this is only one of the uses of humus. Yellow 
clay soils are given to baking which is corrected to a 
great degree as humus forms giving to the soil the prop¬ 
erty called “tilth.” Sandy soils are also greatly benefited 
by the addition of humus. This substance appears, as I 
have said, to be the source of the carbon dioxide in the 
soil; there are some indications that it forms, directly, 
a part of the food of the plant. Its formation comes 
about under the action of the oxygen in the soil by 
means of fungi and bacteria and where oxidation is too 
rapid, as in an arid climate, it slowly burns out. 

Humus fulfils two other needs of the soil; it 
blackens it, which aids in heat absorption, and it in¬ 
creases the retaining power for water. 

Commenting on Snyder’s results, Hilgard* points 
out that the sawdust and cow manure were probably not 
completely humified and that when the nitrogen con- 

* “Soils,” p. 139. 






1 8 2 OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARRFY 

tent is deducted the percentage composition is in better 
agreement. He thinks the nitrogen is probably present in 
the amid form (as in albumen). 

The results of Snyder, he thinks, shows that the 
humus follows in composition the source from which it 
is obtained. 

Hilgard and Jaffa have shown that the humus of arid 
soils is less in amount than in soils with greater moisture 
content and that it is richer in nitrogen. In fact the rapid 
oxidation of the humus in such soils they find is princi¬ 
pally oxidation of carbon and hydrogen, the nitrogen 
remaining for the most part unchanged. It has been 
pointed out by Hilgard that most nitrogenous compounds, 
like flesh for example, decompose with separation of 
ammonia and that the process of decomposition in the soil 
appears thus to differ entirely from the same process in 
air. 

In soils containing nitrogen, oxidation to nitrous and 
nitric acid goes on continuously. The protein or albu- 
menoid (amid) compounds are first converted into 
nitrites by the Bacillus nitrosomonas. These nitrites are 
then oxidized still futher to nitrites by Bacillus nitro- 
bacter. Under arid conditions these nitrites accumulate 
in the soil, and in the course of ages form thick deposits 
as in Death Valley, Cal., and in Chile. 


HUMUS 


183 


Under ordinary conditions the nitrates are taken up 
by plants and this appears to be the source of all or 
most of the nitrogen of some plants. 

We thus see that the formation and preservation 
of the humus in soils is essential and somewhat ex¬ 
pensive. By the use of mineral manure alone on clay 
soils or by the use of too much caustic lime this is burned 
out* and the soils bake and lose their ability to yield 
crops. 

Under an opposite set of conditions as in marshy 
soils and often in woodlands the oxygen of the air is 
excluded and the aerobic bacilli are replaced by anaero¬ 
bic varieties, the products of whose life process is dif¬ 
ferent. In moist cool situations we have the formation 
of peat in the swamps, and in woodlands humic com¬ 
pounds soluble in water which dissolve in and color it 
until neutralized by lime when they are precipitated. The 
necessities of the situation are thus made evident—too 
dry a climate promotes loss of humus, too wet a one or 
insufficient drainage the formation of sour soils. 

I have noticed these effects in our operations in 
Cedar Valley. In one place in the orchard is a wet 
weather spring where the water lies too near the surface 
excluding the air, and here the soil grows poor crops; 

♦This is questioned by Frear. 


184 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARRFY 


it must be drained. The water in one of the shallow 
wells shows some of the brown color common in cypress 
swamps pointing to too little lime. This is on the slope 
of Seiler’s Hill where, as I have said, the water table 
appears to lie near the surface. 


CHAPTER XXVI 

Nitrification 

It must be evident from what has been said in the 
preceding chapter that the conversion of organic nitro¬ 
genous material into nitric acid and nitrates is a very 
important part of the supply of food to the plant, 
especially in the case of plants like wheat which derive 
all their nitrogen from this source. 

From early times this tendency of organic matter 
to produce nitrates by decay has been noted and the 
word niter or saltpeter dates very far back though it has 
been applied to substances other than that now known by 
this name. The word saltpeter comes from the Latin 
sal and petrae meaning the salt of stones. To under¬ 
stand this clearly we must go back to primitive con¬ 
ditions when most men lived in hovels where filth and 
insanitary conditions were universal. The homes of those 
days were in many cases sunk in the ground on one side or 
on all sides, for greater warmth, and no effort was made 
to remove stables or privies to a distance. The dung of 
animals and men accumulated in the unpaved streets of 
towns against the houses which were rapidly converted 
into cellars by the rise of level. The solutions made 


1 86 OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 

by the rainwater percolated through the limy walls and 
were converted into nitrates. In the warmer interior 
these solutions evaporated forming saltpeter which it 
was presently noticed deflagrated when sprinkled on the 
charcoal of the open fireplace. 

The first description of a saltpeter factory is con¬ 
tained in Agricola’s “De Re Metallica” printed in 1556 
by Frobenius. It is in Latin and an elegant and scholarly 
translation was printed by Herbert Clark and Lou Henry 
Hoover in 1912. I met Mr. Hoover in New York 
shortly after the war and asked him about the translation. 
He said that he would not have been able to do the 
work without the assistance of his wife who was a fine 
classical scholar. In the original Latin copy the descrip¬ 
tion is on page 454 and in the translation on page 561. 

In those days saltpeter was used chiefly as an in¬ 
gredient of gunpowder and my deceased friend Dr. Oscar 
Guttmann of London in his “Monumenta Pulvis Pyrii” 
has described and figured this use in detail. Lazarus 
Ercker in 1580 describes the preparation of saltpeter in 
artificial plantations under sheds. This is the date of my 
copy though the first edition was printed in 1574. The 
materials were earth and old mortar watered with urine. 
After several years the mass was mixed with wood ashes 
and leached with hot water and the clear solution evapor¬ 
ated to crystallization. This same process appears to 


NITRIFICATION 187 

have been going on naturally in several places under 
arid conditions where the material has accumulated. 

In India the Shoramallah collects the earth from 
near the house drains and exhausts it to obtain salt¬ 
peter. The earth is replaced and the spot revisited after 
an interval. 

In Southern California, Hilgard tells us, the nitrates 
sometimes accumuate in the soil to the extent of two 
tons per acre,* and in Death Valley I found the nitrate 
hills described by Bailey. These I described in a lecture 
before the American Ceramic Society in 1903 as fol¬ 
lows : 

“Morrison’s ranch, where we stopped that night, is 
on Willow Creek, about half a mile above its junction 
with Amargosa. The ranch contains about twelve 
acres under cultivation—mostly alfalfa—and is sur¬ 
rounded by clay hills in which nitrate of soda is found. 
The surface of these hills is like loose ashes to a depth 
of six to twelve inches. Below this a hard crust is 
found, containing the niter, six to twelve inches thick 
and as hard as iron. In these hills and those lower down 
the valley, Bailey** estimates the total amount of nitrate 
so far located as equal to 22,000,000 tons. 

* “Soils,” p. 68. 

** “Saline Deposits of California,” p. 166. 


l88 OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 

This, however, is a small amount as compared with 
the deposits found in Chile. I have not visited this 
country but the following descriptioin taken from The 
Mineral Industry for 1914 gives a clear picture of the 
conditions: 

“The arid region in which the nitrates are found 
extends for about 430 miles between 13 0 and 25 0 south 
latitude and lies between the Andes in the east and the 
Coast Range on the west. This area lying between the 
two mountain ranges does not form a continuous valley, 
but is broken up by transverse ranges into a series of 
elevated basins or plateaus. These plateaus are gen¬ 
erally flat or undulating and have an elevation from less 
than 2,500 feet to more than 5,000 feet. They have a 
general slope from the foot of the Andes toward the 
Coast Range, and as a result the lowest part of this 
plateau region or pampa as it is called in Chile, lies along 
its western border where it joins the foothills of the 
Coast Range. It is along this zone that the nitrate de¬ 
posits occur. The surface of the surrounding region 
is dry and sandy and vegetation is totally absent. The 
nitrate beds as they occur in different parts of this 
region vary in thickness up to about six feet. They are 
usually found at or near the surface, but may in some 
cases be covered with an overburden to a depth as great 


NITRIFICATION 


189 


as 30 feet. The nitrate deposits are never found pure, 
but are always mixed with sodium chloride and other 
salts, and are impregnated with soluble earthy material. 
Material containing less than 16 per cent is too low 
grade to be mined at a profit at present.” 

This sodium nitrate has been imported in gradually 
increasing amount since 1830, the shipments in 1914 
having been about 58,100,000 quintals. It is readily 
soluble in water but must be used cautiously as a manure 
because, unlike phosphoric acid, potash and ammonia, 
it does not become fixed in the soil but is washed away in 
the drainage in wet weather. 

Concerning the use of nitrogen manures Tipman* 
says: 

“Some plants appear to assimilate nitrogen with 
benefit in a large number of water-soluble forms whereas 
others may assimilate these same forms but be in¬ 
jured by all except the nitrate form. Still others may 
use nitrogen in the form of ammonia without apparent 
injury but are much more wasteful of nitrogen under 
these circumstances and need much more of it in the 
form of ammonia than in the form of nitrate to produce 
one pound of dry matter.” 

That nitrification in the soil is produced by the 
action of bacteria was the discovery of Schloesing and 

* J. Ind. and Eng. Chem 9 , 189. 

13 


190 


OUR FARM IN CE)DAR VALUE)Y 


Muntz in 1877.* They were studying- the action of soil 
on sewage and found that if it was allowed to slowly 
trickle through a column of sand and limestone the am¬ 
monia was not affected much for twenty days. Then it * 
was partly converted into nitric acid and at last it was all 
converted. Suspecting that the conversion might be due 
to bacteria they added chloroform vapor. Nitrification 
ceased but was resumed when the chloroform had dis¬ 
appeared but not until a muddy extract of fertile soil 
was added. This showed that the oxidation was probably 
brought about by an organized ferment. They were 
anticipated in this conjecture by A. Muller who found in 
1873** that dilute solutions of urea in pure water did 
not nitrify but in sewage it did. This was true of am¬ 
monia also and Muller thinks a particular ferment is 
present in sewage. 

In 1878 Robert Warington, then chemist at the 
Rothamsted Station, was investigating “The Amount of 
Nitrates Occurring in Soils of Known History,” his atten¬ 
tion was attracted to this work and he began a series of 
investigations*** on the subject. He found that when 
air was drawn through moist garden soil the nitrates 
and nitrites increased very greatly, but when the air con- 

* Comptes rendus, 84 , 301 . 

** J. Chem, Soc., 26 , 106 . 

***/. Chem. Soc., 33 , 44 . 


NITRIFICATION IQI 

tained vapor of chloroform or carbon bisulfide there was 
very little increase. He found also that darkness was 
essential to nitrification. Schloesing and Muntz then 
found**** that if the soil were heated to the temperature 

of boiling water for an hour nitrification ceases, and that 
sterile soils seeded with Penicillium glaucum, Aspergillus 

niger , Mucor mucedo and racemosus and Mycoderma 
vini and aceti produced no nitrates. Warington studied 
the subject further in 1879* an d found that a material 
to neutralize the nitric acid formed, such as limestone, 
must be present; that nitrification does not go on above 
104° F.; that both nitrous and nitric acids are formed; 
and that a pure nitrite will be converted into a nitrate 
when soil is added. 

In 1884 Warington finds that no nitrification occurs 
in the absence of phosphates, that the organism is one 
of the bacteria and that there are probably two kinds at 
work. 

In a concluding paper Warington** in 1891 figures 
and describes both organisms but in this he had been 
anticipated by Winogradsky.*** 

Several years later I met Warington, then on a visit 
to this country, in New York City. It must have been 
a great disappointment to him that after having worked 

**** Comptus rendus, 85 , 1018 ; 86 , 892 . 

*J. Chem. Soc., 35 , 429 ; 45 , 637 . 

** J. Chem. Soc. } 59 , 484 . 

*** Ann del'lnslilut Pasteur , 1890 , 4 , 213, 257 , 760 . 


192 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VARREY 


so long, so hard and so successfully on the problem he 
should have been anticipated by one year in describing 
and figuring the organisms. 

I have recited the story of this work with a purpose: 
to show how hard is the solution of such problems, how 
much self-denial it involves and how uncertain is the 
reward. 


CHAPTER XXVII 

Sulphates in the Soil 

Gypsum, land plaster or calcium sulphate, has been 
used as a fertilizer for many centuries. It is possible that 
much of the benefit derived from it is due to the lime it 
contains but this seems doubtful. Withers and Fraps**** 
have asserted that seeds contain more sulfur than was 
formerly believed. Since many soils are low in sulphur 
it is possible that some of the benefit derived from gypsum 
and acid phosphate is due to the sulphur they contain. 
In my boyhood, plaster was often applied to clover with 
benefit. I remember that one farmer told me he sowed 
the word C E O V E R on the wheat stubble and that the 
word was plainly legible in the clover field. The use of 
plaster seems to have decreased in recent years, but this 
may be because acid phosphate, which contains it, is so 
universally applied. 

Bulletin 174 of the Kentucky Experiment Station, 
published in 1913 contains much information on this 
subject. The following table taken from a paper by 
Hart and Peterson {Bull. 14, Wis. Agl. Expt. Sta.) is 
interesting: 

****N. C. Agrl. Expt. Sta. Report, 1902-3, p. 53. 


194 


our Farm in cedar valley 


Sulphur in Feeding Stuffs—Air Dry 

Total Sulphur 

Total Sulphur in 

Material 

percentage 

ash percentage 

Alfalfa hay 

O.287 

0.170 

Barley 

0.153 

0.024 

Barley straw 

0.147 

O.083 

Beans (white garden) 

O.232 

0.052 

Cabbage 

O.819 

0.527 

Clover, red 

O.164 

O.089 

Corn, white 

0.170 

0.004 

Corn stover, Sample i 

0.126 

0.H3 

Cotton seed meal 

O.487 

0.037 

Hay, mixed 

O.160 

O.142 

Linseed meal, Sample i 

O.404 

O.076 

Oats, Sample i 

O.189 

0.022 

Oats straw, Sample i 

0.195 

0.092 

Onions 

O.568 

0.120 

Rape tops 

O.988 

0-453 

Rapeseed meal 

O.456 

0.153 

Rice 

0.126 

0.001 

Rice bran 

0.l8l 

0.009 

Soy bean 

0.341 

0.034 

Sugar beet, late field sample 

0.128 

0.064 

Sugar beet, tops 

0.433 

0.316 

Timothy 

O.I90 

0.078 

Turnips 

0.740 

0.359 

Turnip top 

O.9OO 

0.438 

Wheat, Sample i 

0.170 

0.003 

Wheat bran, Sample 

0.200 

0.002 

Wheat gluten 

0.860 

0.004 

Wheat straw, Sample 

0.II9 

0.053 


The figures in the second column are from Wolff’s 
“Aschen Analysen.” 

The author of the Kentucky Bulletin, O. M. Shedd, 
has made an examination of the amount of sulphur con¬ 
tained in Kentucky soils and in some cases finds it in¬ 
sufficient. It seems likely that acid phosphate, ammonium 
sulphate and potassium sulphate may owe part of their 
value to the sulphur present. 





SULPHATES IN THE SOIL 


T 95 


In the Journal of Agricultural Research for Dec., 
X 9 X 9 > Vol. 18, p. 329, Shedd has continued his work on 
this subject. The work was done during the war, the 
object being to see whether in a mixture of sulphur, 
calcium phosphate and soil, the sulphur would be oxidized 
to sulphuric acid and liberate phosphoric acid. The 
materials were made into composts and favorable re¬ 
sults were obtained, as much as 17 per cent water soluble 
and 84 per cent citrate soluble phosphoric acid having 
been obtained after twenty-four months’ standing. 

Very large amounts of gypsum are mined annually. 
In 1913 this country produced 2,357,752 metric tons. A 
considerable proportion of this amount is used as a re¬ 
tarder in Portland cement. For this purpose the crude 
mineral is mixed with the cement clinker before grinding. 
For use as fertilizer a relatively small amount is finely 
ground. Most of the output is heated in large kettles to 
expel most of the water of crystallization, the product 
being called “plaster of Paris” used for finishing walls 
as “hard plaster.” 

Gypsum is a rather common mineral in the United 
States and Canada. It appears to have been formed in 
the evaporation of sea water and occurs often near or 
associated with deposits of common salt. Sometimes 


196 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARUFY 


calcium sulphate occurs as anhydrite which differs only 
in that it contains no water of crystallization. These 
minerals are slightly soluble in water. 

Sulphate of soda occurs in the alkali soils of the arid 
region and when present in large amount is harmful. It 
constitutes the “white alkali” of the western plains which 
effloresces on the surface in fine white needles. It is 
supposed to be one-third as harmful as common salt. 
If sulphur is deficient in a soil a moderate application 
might be expected to benefit but I have been able to find 
no data, and the subject seems unimportant. 

Sulphate of potash is an ingredient of “Kainite” a 
low grade potash manure from Stassfurth. It is also sold 
in a much purer form. 

There seems to be little difference in fertilizing value 
between this and the sulphate of magnesia which also 
occurs in kainite but so far as I know has not been used 
as a manure. 

Most of the other sulphates, such as copperas, or 
ferrous sulphate and zinc sulphate or white vitriol are 
harmful. Blue vitriol or copper sulphate is used in insecti¬ 
cides but it is first treated with slacked lime which forms 
copper hydroxide and gypsum. 

Under reducing conditions, especially where air is 
shut out the sulphates are reduced to sulphides which, 


SULPHATES IN THE SOIL 


197 


especially as iron pyrite, are often present in soils and 
the rocks from which soils are derived. 

When soils containing pyrites are drained and the 
air finds access, oxidation of the pyrite to copperas and 
free sulphuric acid occurs and sterile soils result if 
much is present. 

In the Report of the Tenth Census of the United 
States Hilgard publishes numerous analyses of soils 
which show that the content of sulphuric acid runs all the 
way from 0.009 to 0.285 per cent in clay and from 0.028 
to 0.105 P er cent m sandy soil. It must be confessed 
that our knowledge of the agricultural value of sulphur 
and the sulphates is decidedly incomplete. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

Old Time Farming 

The practice of agriculture dates back beyond 
written history and even beyond that of the Egyptian 
monuments. The beginnings of our knowledge in this, 
as in so many other fields of human endeavor, are in the 
country beside the Nile where, because of the climate, 
the records have so long survived. Breasted * tells us 



that “the calendar year of 365 days was introduced in 
4241 B. C. the earliest fixed date in the history of the 
world known to us.” Then and thereafter this fertile 
valley irrigated by the Nile was the theatre of a dense 
population of farmers whose irrigation ditches carried 
the annual flood over all the cultivated land. In very 
early days the elephant, giraffe, hippopotamus and okapi 
roamed through the jungles, the waters teemed with fish 
and there were many ducks and geese. The early weapons 
and tools were of flint and wood. These were succeeded 
by articles of copper and iron. Bronze vessels and tools 
came later. On p. 92 Breasted shows the plow made of 

* “A History of Egypt,” p. 14. 










OLD TIME FARMING 


199 


wood followed by the hoe, also made of wood, used to 
break the clods. The grain was sowed broadcast and 
trampled on by sheep driven over the field. Large herds 
of cattle, sheep, goats and donkeys were raised and much 
poultry but no horses. Wheat, barley and a species of 
millet were raised. The corn was cut with a sickle or 
pulled up by the roots and trodden out by oxen, or passed 
between the teeth of a comb. After threshing, the prod¬ 
uct was thrown into the air by women, the wind carry¬ 
ing away the chaff. It is fair to infer that the bread was 
yellow like that in Mexico where the dirty grain is ground 
into yellow flour to be used in making the cakes of bread 
called panuelo. Another country in which agriculture 
on much the same plan was carried on was that between 
the Euphrates and Tigris in Babylonia and Assyria. The 
Jews, as we know from the Bible were great farmers. 
They grew wheat, barley, millet, beans, rice and perhaps 
cotton. By this time harrows were in use drawn by cattle. 

The Greeks inhabited a mountainous country and 
raised grapes, olives and figs, but cereals were also grown. 
Xenophon wrote the Economist and the works of Theo¬ 
phrastus contain treatises on the History of Plants and 
the Origin of Plants. 

Many great Romans were farmers, Cincinnatus for 
example. The Elder Cato wrote a treatise on husbandry 
called De Agricultura and Varro a work called Rerum 


200 OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARRFY 

Rusticorum Libri Tres in his eightieth year. Prefaced 
to a beautiful translation of these books published in 1913, 
Fairfax Harrison, President of the Southern Railroad, 
and well known as a successful farmer says: “The study 
of the Roman treatises on farm management is profitable 
to the modern farmer however practical and scientific he 
may be. He will not find in them anything about bacteria 
and ‘nodular hypothesis’ in respect of legumes, nor any¬ 
thing about plant metabolism, nor even anything about the 
effect of creatinine on growth and absorption; but impor¬ 
tant and fascinating as are the illuminations of modern 
science upon practical agriculture, the intelligent farmer 
with imagination, (every successful farmer has imagina¬ 
tion, whether or not he is intelligent) will find something 
quite as important to his welfare in the body of Roman 
husbandry which has come down to us, namely: a back¬ 
ground for his daily routine, an appreciation that two 
thousand years ago men were studying the same problems 
and solving them by intelligent reasoning. Columella 
well says that in reading the ancient writers we may find 
in them more to approve than to disapprove, however 
much our new science may lead us to differ from them 
in practice. The characteristics of the Roman methods 
of farm management viewed in the light of the present 
state of the art in America, were thoroughness and 
patience. The Romans had learned many things which 


OLD TIME) FARMING 


201 


we are now learning again, such as green manuring with 
legumes, soiling, seed selection, the testing of soil for 
sourness, intensive cultivation of a fallow as well as a 
crop, conservative rotation, the importance of live stock 
in a system of general farming, the preservation of the 
chemical content of manure, and the composting of the 
rubbish of a farm, but they brought to their farming 
operations something more which we have not altogether 
learned—the character which made them a people of 
enduring achievement.” 

And in the preface Harrison tells us that “the present 
editor made the acquaintance of Cato and Varro standing 
at a book stall on the Quai Voltaire in Paris, and they 
carried him away in imagination, during a pleasant half- 
hour, not to the vineyards and olive yards of Roman Italy, 
but to the blue hills of a far-distant Virginia where the 
corn was beginning to tassel and the fat cattle were loafing 
in the pastures.” 

“Marcus Porcius Cato (B. C. 234—149),” Harrison 
tells us. “was the type of Roman produced by the most 
vigorous days of the Republic. He was an upstanding 
man but as coarse as he was vigorous in mind and body.” 

“Varro (B. C. 116-28) on the contrary was a scholar 
who amused his leisure by conducting a farm. He was 
a friend of Cicero and a very voluminous writer.” 


202 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VARUEY 


Virgil wrote his Georgies from 37-30 B. C., Harrison 
claims that he was much indebted to Varro both for the 
thought and the word. But listen to this translation of 
parts of Book One by Hamilton Bryce: 

“In the newly opened spring, when cold moisture 
descends from the snow-covered hills, and the soil loosens 
and crumbles beneath the western breeze; then let my 
steers begin to groan under the entered plough, and the 
share to glitter, polished by the furrow. That field 
especially answers the expectation of the greedy farmer 
which twice hath felt the sun and twice the cold; the 
immense harvests of such a field are wont to burst the 
barns.” 

And again: 

“Often too, it has been found of use to set fire to 
poor lands, and to burn the light stubble in the crackling 
flames; whether it be that by this process the mould 
receives some subtle powers and rich nutriment: or that 
every noxious quality is extracted by the fire and the 
baneful moisture exudes; or that the heat opens more 
channels and undetected pores through which the sap 
may reach the young plants; or that it rather hardens the 
soil and binds closer the gaping veins, so that the pen¬ 
etrating showers may not harm it, or the too strong 
heat of the scorching sun smite it, or the piercing cold 
of Boreas blast it.” 


OLD TIME EARMING 


203 


Even in the translation this is poetical. 

Here is his description of the plough: 

“At its early growth in the woods, an elm bent with 
great effort is shaped into a curve, and assumes the form 
of the crooked plough. From the lower end of this 
the pole projects to the length of eight feet, two mould- 
boards are fitted on, and a share beam with a double 
ridge. The light linden also is hewn beforehand for the 
yoke and the tall beech is felled and a handle cut, to 
turn the bottom of the machine behind, and the smoke 

seasons the timber hung up in the chimneys.” 

Agriculture during the middle ages must have been 
a dreary profession. Indeed most lives must have been 
dreary in that period of bigotry, ignorance and oppression. 
Neither life nor property was safe; there were constant 
wars, and extreme poverty was common. 

I had grown up with the idea that the Swiss were 
a race of hardy, honest, jovial free men; but when I 
traveled there in later years I got some idea of what 
European rural life must have been like in the middle 
ages. I went into out of the way places in the moun¬ 
tains where tourists seldom come. Here the picturesque 
chalet of other places becomes an unpainted hovel with 
the cattle occupying the ground floor, a pile of dung in 
front and filth everywhere. Many patches of grain lie at 
such an angle that one wonders whether the soil is not 


204 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VALEEY 


pegged fast to the underlying rock. The people, many 
of them, are ignorant, stupid and obstinate. The charm 
of the legend of Gesler, William Tell and the Apple 
evaporates in the chill air of reality. Following a beauti¬ 
ful stream running alongside the road on the Tete Noire 
I wanted to drink it but was warned not to do so by the 
guide, it was snow-water and unhealthy; but as we 
mounted the alp we found the stream flowing through a 
filthy cattle yard with the drippings running in: the snow¬ 
water theory exploded with a bang. I saw one old woman 

of perhaps seventy years with 
a large osier basket strapped 
to her back filled with prob¬ 
ably 150 pounds of cow dung 
(not straw manure) climbing 
painfully up the track toward 
a field to be seeded. It was 
an unpleasant sight, but I im¬ 
agine a common one in those 
beautiful ages of feudalism and 
chivalry. Heaven save the 
mark! No wonder they made 
little progress during many centuries in agriculture or 
anything else. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

Farming in the Orient 

Conceit is a fellow much beloved of all men and 
women. Before we are aware of it he slips in beside us 
and stays there, a part of our very being. He becomes 
gradually so much a part of us that we are not even 
conscious of his presence. All people of all times have 
succumbed to his wiles. There is not a tribe upon the 
earth that does not consider themselves the people and 
has not some term of opprobrium for outsiders. In 
thinking of ourselves as a chosen people we consider 
ourselves free, enlightened, enterprising and vigorous; so 
we are. But I have found something to admire in every 
foreign land—something we had missed at home. We 
may well go abroad, each with an open mind prepared to 
find and bring back the good to be used at home in improv¬ 
ing our own practice. 

Such a man with such a mind was the late F. H. 
King who was Professor of Agricultural Physics in the 

University of Wisconsin at Madison and afterwards 
Chief of the Division of Soil Management, U. S. Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture. Professor King wrote an interest¬ 
ing and valuable book on “The Soil” and several others on 

agricultural subjects. Not long before his death he visited 

China, Korea and Japan and on his return wrote an 
14 


206 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VADEEY 


account of what he had seen entitled “Farmers of Forty 
Centuries.” This was published in 1911 shortly after 
his death. It is a charming book with a preface written 
by his friend Professor E. H. Bailey of Cornell. Every 
farmer should buy and read this book for it is full of 
both instruction and encouragement. 

Professor King became a profound admirer of the 
agricultural practices of these three peoples. Their sim¬ 
plicity, sincerity and untiring industry commanded his 
respect and admiration. He says: 

“The great movement of cargoes of feeding stuffs 
and mineral fertilizers to western Europe and to the 
eastern United States began less than a century ago and 
has never been possible as a means of maintaining soil 
fertility in China, Korea or Japan, nor can it be main¬ 
tained indefinitely in either Europe or America. These 
importations are for the time making tolerable the waste 
of plant food materials through our modern systems of 
sewage disposal and other faulty practices; but the Mon¬ 
golian races have held all such wastes, both urban and 
rural, and many others which we ignore sacred to agri¬ 
culture, applying them to their fields. 

“The three main islands of Japan in 1907 had a 
population of 46,977,003 maintained on 20,000 square 
miles of cultivated field. This is at the rate of more 
than three people to each acre, and of 2,349 to each 


farming in the: orie;nt 


207 


square mile; and yet the total agricultural imports into 
Japan in 1907 exceeded the agricultural exports by less 
than one dollar per capita. If the cultivated land of 
Holland is estimated at but one-third of her total area, 
the density of her population in 1905 was, on this basis, 
less than one-third that of Japan in her three main islands. 
At the same time Japan is feeding 69 horses and 56 cattle, 
nearly all laboring animals, to each square mile of culti¬ 
vated field, while we were feeding in 1900 but 30 horses 
and mules per same area. 

“As coarse food transformers Japan was maintain¬ 
ing 16,500,000 domestic fowl, 825 per square mile, but 
only one for almost three of her people. We were main¬ 
taining, in 1900, 250,600,000 poultry, but only 387 per 
square mile of cultivated field and yet more than three for 
each person. Japan’s coarse food transformers in the 
form of swine, goats and sheep aggregated but 13 to the 
square mile and provided but one of these units for each 
180 of her people; while in the United States in 1900 there 
were being maintained, as transformers of grass and 
coarse grain into meat and milk 95 cattle, 99 sheep and 
72 swine per square mile of improved farms. In this 
reckoning each of the cattle should be counted as the 
equivalent of perhaps five of the sheep and swine, for 
the transforming power of the dairy cow is high. On 
this basis we are maintaining at the rate of more than 


208 


our farm in cedar valley 


646 of the Japanese units per square mile, and more than 
five of these to every man, woman and child, instead of 
one to every 180 of the population as is the case in 
Japan. 

“Correspondingly accurate statistics are not acces¬ 
sible for China, but in the Shantung province we talked 
with a farmer having twelve in his family and who kept 
one donkey, one cow, both exclusively laboring animals, 
and two pigs on 2.5 acres of cultivated land where he 
grew wheat, millet, sweet potatoes and beans. Here 
is a density of population equal to 3.072 people 256 
donkeys, 256 cattle and 512 swine per square mile.” 

Now, how do they do it? 

“First, The Crops Grown .—The selection of rice 
and the millets as the great staple food crops of these 
three nations, and the system of agriculture they have 
evolved to realize the most from them, are to us remark¬ 
able and indicate a grasp of essentials and principles 
which may well cause western nations to pause and 
reflect. 

“Notwithstanding the large and favorable rainfall 
of these countries, each of the nations have selected the 
one crop which permits them to utilize not only practi¬ 
cally the entire amount of rain which falls upon their 
fields, but in addition enormous volumes of the run-off 
from adjacent uncultivated mountain country. Wherever 


farming in the orient 


209 


paddy fields are practicable there rice is grown. In the 
three main islands of Japan 56 per cent of the cultivated 
fields, 11,000 square miles, is laid out for rice growing 
and is maintained under water from transplanting to 
near harvest time after which the land is allowed to 
dry, to be devoted to dry land crops during the balance 
of the year, where the season permits. 

“To anyone who studies the agricultural methods 
of the P"ar East in the field it is evident that these people, 
centuries ago, came to appreciate the value of water in 
crop production as no other nations have. They have 
adapted conditions to crops and crops to conditions until 

✓ * r 



with rice they have a cereal which permits the most 
intense fertilization and at the same time ensuring of 
maximum yields against both drought and flood. With 
the practice of western nations in all humid climates, no 









210 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAUUEY 


matter how completely and highly we fertilize, in more 
years than not yields are reduced by a deficiency or an 
excess of water. 

“Rice as we know, yields twice as much per acre 
as wheat and permits the growing of a second crop. 
The innumerable canals were made primarily to distri¬ 
bute the water and in China, Korea and Japan there are 
more miles of canals than we have of railroads. Millet 
was selected as the chief dry culture cereal because it 
is drought-resisting and quick-maturing. 

“Second, Fertilization. —In China 70 tons of canal 
mud per acre are sometimes applied. Manure of all kinds 
is carefully saved and organic refuse is carefully com¬ 
posted and put on the soil. The humus waste in Japan is 
1.75 tons per acre and her total application of manure 
equals 4.5 tons per acre. Clover is grown after the rice 
harvest and turned under or composted with canal mud 
and then applied. 

“Third, Keeping the Land at Work —Time is a func¬ 
tion of every life process as it is of every physical, 
chemical and mental reaction. The husbandman is an 
industrial biologist and as such is compelled to shape 
his operations so as to conform with the time require¬ 
ments of his crops. The oriental farmer is a time econ¬ 
omizer beyond all others. He utilizes the first and last 
minute and all that are between. The foreigner accuses 


FARMING IN THE ORIENT 


211 


the Chinaman of being - always long on time, never in a 
fret, never in a hurry. This is quite true and made 
possible for the reason that they are a people who defi¬ 
nitely set their faces toward the future and lead time by 
the forelock. They have long realized that much time 
is required to transform organic matter into forms avail¬ 
able for plant food and, although they are the heaviest 
users in the world the largest portion of this organic 
matter is predigested with soil or subsoil before it is 
applied to their fields and at an enormous cost of human 
time and labor, but it practically lengthens their growing 
season and enables them to adopt a system of multiple 
cropping which would not otherwise be possible. By 
planting in hills and rows with intertillage it is very 
common to see three crops growing upon the same field 
at one time, but in different stages of maturity, one 
nearly ready to harvest, one just coming up and the 
other at the stage where it is drawing most heavily upon 
the soil. By such practice, with heavy fertilization, and 
by supplemental irrigation when needful, the soil is made 
to do full duty throughout the growing season. 

“Then, notwithstanding the enormous acreage of rice 
planted each year in these countries, it is all set in hills 
and every spear is transplanted. Doing this, they save 
in many ways except in the matter of human labor, which 
is the one thing they have in excess. By thoroughly 


212 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VARREY 


preparing the seed bed, fertilizing highly and giving the 
most careful attention they are able to grow on one acre 
during thirty to fifty days, enough plants to occupy ten 
acres and in the meantime on the other nine acres crops 
are maturing, being harvested and the fields being fitted to 
receive the rice when it is ready for transplanting, and 
in effect this interval of time is added to their growing 
season.” 

King is of the opinion that the growing of tea in China 
and Japan had its foundation in the need of some addi¬ 
tion to the boiled water universally used for drinking. 
Boiling the drinking water is necessary because it is the 
only available safeguard against the disease germs to be 
found in all water in such densely populated countries. 
The total value of the silk crop of these three countries 
he puts at $700,000,000. 

King tells us that a large proportion of the fertile 
land in both China and Japan has been graded thus 
reducing to the smallest possible degree the danger of 
erosion and loss of fertility. This puts the stamp of 

approval from practical experience upon a suggestion of 
mine for Cedar Valley mainly upon theoretical grounds. 
Terracing the slopes with the same object seems to be 
largely practiced but the removal of boulders with dyna¬ 
mite ought to be much easier for us than it has been for 
the Chinese. 


FARMING IN THE ORIENT 


213 


The Chinese are vegetarians and eat but little meat 
apparently from choice, yet they are strong and well 
nourished. Attention is called to the fact stated by 
Hopkins in his “Soil Fertility and Permanent Agricul¬ 
ture,” p. 234 that “1,000 bushels of grain has at least five 
times as much food value and will support five times as 
many people as will the meat or milk that can be made 
from it.” 

Experiments made at Rothamsted show that cattle 
store but 6.2 pounds of food eaten as increase of weight, 
sheep store 8, and pigs 17.6. Apparently the Chinese 
discovered this relation long since for swine are the means 
they use to transform rough forage into edible food. 

The fuel problem is solved by burning bundles of 
rice straw and cotton stems. Charcoal is made from 
trees grown on mountainous land and is powdered and 
made into balls of fuel cemented by a by-product from the 
manufacture of rice syrup. Coal is being more largely 
used each year. But they are much less wasteful than 
we are. They conserve the heat from their fuel to an 
extent undreamed of in this wasteful land and they use 
wadded cotton cloth to keep them warm and make fuel 
unnecessary. Contrary to the statements generally made 
the Chinese are not stripping their hills of timber with no 


214 


OUR farm in cedar vauuey 


thought of the future. The roots of the trees cut down 
are grubbed out and used as fuel as well as all parts of 
the tree including the pine needles. Young trees spring 
up spontaneously but if not they are planted from nur¬ 
series. The dried grass from the grave lands, if not 
fed off, is gathered and used as fuel. Sorghum stems are 
also used for fuel. This reminds me of the story I 
heard the other day of manufacturers in the middle west 
who are using the coarse part of the cornstalk for fuel, 
with satisfactory results. 

Rice and millet straw is used for thatching and the 
coarse stems of the kaoling or sorghum are laid across 
the rafters. These are tied together and to the rafters 
with twine. A layer of thin clay mortar is then troweled 
on, and over this millet stems cut to a length of 18 inches 
and tied in bundles eight inches thick, over this in the 
better houses a covering is laid of earth-lime mortar. 
Unburned brick made of clay and chopped straw are used 
for cheap construction. Sometimes alternate courses of 
unburned and burned bricks are used. Burned tiles are 
also sometimes used for roofing. Most of the lumber 
necessary is hand sawed, but lumber is expensive and 
its use limited, the forests being cut over at intervals of 
twenty-five years or less. In Sweden I was told they 
found the greatest product was obtained by cutting off the 
timber every thirty years. 


FARMING IN THE ORIENT 


215 


I wish more space could be spared for extracts 
from this very interesting and valuable book. It is full 
of exact information and lessons in economics are spread 
on every page. 

There are people “who are too proud to fight” and 
too proud to profit from the experience of others. But 
pride is the breeder of poverty and of annihilation. 


CHAPTER XXX 


Old English Farmers 

Sometime in the reign of King John lived Walter of 
Henley. He appears to have been a bailiff but nothing 
else is known about him. His treatise is written in the 
Anglo-French of that day which was the language of 
those who made any pretence to gentility. His treatise 
with several others of less importance of about the same 
period was edited by Elizabeth Lamond and published 
by the Royal Historical Society in 1890. This treatise 
seems to be an attempt to put into writing the knowledge 
common to the farmers of England in the early part of 
the thirteenth century. It is not a great literary perform¬ 
ance, and there is an absence of reference to the clas¬ 
sical treatises so common in manuals of a later date. I 
shall give here one passage in the original with its transla¬ 
tion as a sample: 

De Comben Vos SemerSt Vn Acre De Tere 

“Byen sauet ke vn acre seme aformett prent treys 
arrures hors pris teres ke sunt semes checun an, E quey 
vn plus vn autre meyns checune arrure vaut vi d. E le 
hercer vaut i d. E sur lacre couent il semer al meyns 
deus bussels ore valent a la seynt mychel al meyns les 
ij bussels xij d. E le sercler vne mayle. E le syer v d. o 
le carier en aust i d. e le forage aquiterat le batre. Al 


OLD ENGLISH FARMERS 


217 


tierz de votre semayl done deuet avoyr vi bussles e valent 
iij s. e vos custages amontent iij s, e iij ob. e la terre 
est uotre e ne mye alowe.” 

For How Much You Shall Sow an Acre 

You know surely that an acre sown with wheat takes 
three ploughings, except lands which are sown yearly; 
and that, one with the other, each ploughing is worth 
sixpence, and harrowing a penny, and on the acre it 
is necessary to sow at least two bushels. Now two bushels 
at Michaelmas are worth at least twelvepence, and weed¬ 
ing a halfpenny, and reaping fivepence, and carrying in 
August a penny; the straw will pay for the threshing. 
At three time your sowing you ought to have six bushels, 
worth three shillings, and the cost amounts to three 
shillings and three halfpence, and the ground is yours 
and not reckoned. 

This passage is enlightening in several ways: the 
yield per acre is very small; the profit is less than nothing 
for the yield quoted and the costs and prices are very low 
as compared with modern practice. In the Introduction 
to this translation, W. W. Cunningham says: “In the 
thirteenth century there were only two economic classes, 
and the lord had a large home farm or domain land which 
was his chief source of income. This home farm was 
cultivated by the labour of the villans, who were required 
to spend on it so many days each week, according to the 


2lS 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAUUFY 


season of the year, and who had to discharge certain 
occasional services as well. In return the lord supplied 
them with small holdings which they could cultivate on 
their own account on any days when they were not obliged 
to be at work on the domain lands. * * * * The villan 
was not paid wages like the modern labourer, but in an 
ordinary way he worked three days a week on the domain 
land, he gave besides extra days in autumn, and per¬ 
formed other incidental duties, and he had in return his 
meals on some of the working days, and a holding {yir- 
gata) of about thirty acres, which his lord stocked with 
a yoke of oxen and half a dozen sheep when the villan 
first entered on his tenancy.” 

In those days “root crops were unknown, and there 
were no artificial grasses * * * On some estates each field 
was allowed to lie fallow every other year (two field 
system), on other estates every third year (three field 
system).**** Though they were accustomed to manure 
the land, and in some districts used marl, they did com¬ 
paratively little in the way of drainage.” 

Walter of Henley directs that the seed for wheat be 
changed every year; he forbids the farmer to sell the 
stubble; he advocates the formation of compost heaps; 
he discourages deep ploughing; cattle are to be fed 
sparely but often; they are to be bathed and curried; 
the bull calf is to have all the milk for a month and the 


ORD ENGLISH FARMERS 


219 


heifer calf three weeks after which they are to be weaned 
gradually. Cattle should have plenty of water and the 
cows must be sorted and the poor ones discarded. 

In 1523 appeared the “Book of Husbandry’’ probably 
written by John Fitzherbert. This contains a discription 
of the various implements used by the farmer. Cart 
wheels were sometimes being bound with iron. The 
roller has begun to be used “after a shower of rayne, to 
make the grounde even to mowe.” It was the common 
practice to cut the wheat stubble high and then mow the 
stubble; he prefers the practice in Somersetshire where 
“they do shere theyr wheat very lowe; and the wheaten 
strawe that they purpose to make thacke of, they do not 
threshe it, but cut off the ears, and bynd it in sheves, 
and call it rede, and therewith they thacke theyr houses.” 

In 1523 this was followed by the “Book of Survey¬ 
ing and Improvements,” by the same author. 

Thomas Tusser, to whom I have before referred, in 
1557 wrote “A Hundredth Good Pointes of Husbandry.” 
This contains only thirteen quarto leaves. There appear 
to be few copies extant but there is a copy in the British 
Museum. Other editions appeared in 1561, 1562 and 
1570. To the latter edition a treatise on Huswifry was 
added. In 1573 an edition called “Five Hundredth Points 
of Good Husbandry united to as Many of Good Hus¬ 
wifry” appeared. There were many subsequent editions. 


220 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VAFFFY 


I shall quote some passages from the edition of 1630: 

“An Introduction to the Booke of Husbandry” 

CHAPTER 4 

Good husbandmen must moile and toile, 
lay to liue, by laboured field: 

Their wiues at home must keepe such code, 
as their like acts, may profit yeeld. 

For well they know, 
as shaft from bow, 
or chalke from snow. 

A good round rent their Lords they giue, 
and must keepe tutch in all their pay, 

With credit crackt else for to liue, 
or trust to legs and run away. 

Though fense well kept is one good point, 
and tilth well done in season due: 

Yet needing salue in time t’annoint, 
is all in all, and needfull true. 

As for the rest, 
thus thinke I best, 
as friend doth ghest. 

With hand in hand, to lead thee forth 
to Ceres crample, there to behold 

A thousand things, as richly worth 
as any Pearle, is worthy gold.” 


(p. 11.) 


OLD ENGLISH FARMERS 


221 


I seeme but a druge, yet I passe any king, 

To such as can use me, great wealth I doe bring. 
Since Adam first liued, I neuer did die, 

When Noe was a shipman, there alsoe was I. 

The earth to sustaine mee, the sea for my fish, 

Be ready to pleasure me, as I would wish. 

What hath any life, but I help to preserue, 

What wight without me, but is ready to sterue 
In woodland, in champion, in Citte or Towne, 

If long I be absent, what falleth not downe 
If long I be present, what goodnesse can want:' 
Though things at my comming, were neuer so scant. 
So many as loue me, and use me aright, 

With treasure and pleasure, I richly acquight. 

Great kings I doe succour, else wrong it would go, 
The king of all kings, hath appointed it so. 

(p-13) 

One crop and fallow, some soile will abide, 
where if ye goe further, lay profit aside. 

Where pease ye had, and a fallow thereon, 

sow wheat ye may well, without dung thereupon: 
New broken up land, or without water opprest, 
or ouermuch dunged, for wheat is not best. 
Where water all winter anoyeth too much, 
bestow not thy wheat, upon land that is such: 
But rather sow Oates, or else bullimong thare, 


2 22 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 


gray peason of Runciuals, Fitches, or Tare, 

Sow Acornes ye owners, that tymber doth loue; 
sow Haw and Rie with them, the better to proue. 

If cattle, or Conie, may enter to crop, 

young Oke is in danger of loosing his top. 

Who pescods delighteth, to haue with the first, 
if now he doe sow them, I think it not worst: 

The greener thy peason, and warmer thy roome, 
more lustie the layer, more plenty they come. 

Doe plow up or delue up, aduised with skill, 
the breadth of a ridge, and in length as ye will: 

Where speedy quickset, for a fence ye will draw, 
to sow in the seed of the bramble and haw. 

Though plenty of Acornes, the porking to fat, 
not taken in season, may perish by that: 

If ratling or swelling, get once in the throat, 
thou losest thy porkling, a crowne to a groat. 

(p. 41.) 

Carrots, cabbages, turnips and rape were cultivated 
as well as hemp and flax. Hops and buckwheat were also 
grown. 

Tusser was born at Rivenhall, Essex. He became 
a chorister in the chapel of the castle at Wallingford and 
afterward at St. Paul’s Cathedral and Eton College. 
From there he went to King’s College, Cambridge; thence 
to Trinity Hall and into the service of Baron Paget. Ten 


OLD ENGLISH FARMERS 


223 


years later he became a farmer at Cattiwade, Suffolk. 
He appears to have been a good musician, a tolerable poet, 
a moderately good farmer but a rather poor economist, 
for he was never very well off though continually on the 
move. Some of his directions about farming do not 
appeal to us now, but this probably would be true of any 
writer about farming of this day. 

In 1559* “Foure Books of Husbandry collected 
by M. Couradus Heresbachius Councellour to the high 
and mightie Prince, the Duke of Cleues and Newly Eng¬ 
lished and encreased by Barnaby Googe, Esquire,” was 
printed in London in black letter by Thos. Wight. This 
curious and rare old book is numbered by leaves and not 
by pages as now; thus in the index we have Asse, his 
use, 118. a and Ashes for doung, 19. b. 

The first Booke of Husbandrie, entreating of earable 
ground, tillage and pasture is in the form of a discussion 
between Cono, Rigo, Metalla and Hermes as follows: 

Cono. “Methinketh I heare a neighing and 
trampling of horses without. Goe Hermes 
go know what strangers there are. 

Hermes. Sir, if my sight faile mee not it is Rigo, 
the principall Secretary. 

* My copy is dated 1601. 


224 


OUR FARM in cedar vaeeEy 


Meteeea. A goodly master, scarce you have been 
two daies at home, and now you must be 
sent for againe to the Court, perhaps to be 
sent abrode in some embassage. 

Cono. God forbid, indge the best, it may be he 
comes to see me of courtesie and friend¬ 
ship. 

Rigo. Oh maister Cono, I am glad I have found 

you in the midst of your country joyes and 
pleasures: Surely you are a happie man, 
that shifting your selfe from the troubles 
and turmoiles of the Court, can pi eke out 
so quiet a life, and giuing over all, can 
secretly lie hid in the pleasant Countrie, 
suffering us in the meane time to be tost 
and torne with the cares and businesse of 
the common weale. 

Cono. Surely I must confesse I have taken a 
happy way, if these goods of the earth 
would suffer mee to enjoy such happinesse, 
that have bequeathed the troublesome and 
ambitious life of the Court to the bottome 
of the sea. But what: do you intend, to 
bring me againe to my old troubles, being 
thus happily discharged.” 


OLD ENGLISH FARMERS 


225 


In the course of the dialogue Cono proceeds to relate 
how Lucullus, Scipio, Cicero, and Socrates favored a 
country life and from this he proceeds to detail of his 
daily habits while in the country; he rises early, unless it 
be winter when the weather is bad or sickness intervenes, 
in which case he entrusts the direction of the work to his 
steward whom he has carefully instructed and his wife to 
his maid Eurielia “who may well be my wives suffragan.” 
But, he tells us “the best doong for the field is the maisters 
foot.” He quotes Cato by saying that a good husbandman 
“must rather be a sellar than a byer.” After extolling a 
country life still further he proceeds to describe how large 
a house should be built and how situated; then he proceeds 
to describe the various buildings and the tools they house: 
the Kitchen, the Larder, the Cornloft, the Appleloft, the 
Barnes and the Stables, following this, he lays down rules 
for the “choice of a Bayliffe,” his trayning and his Wife, 
and from this proceeds to descant upon the soil and its 
varieties, dunging, plowing, seed and seeding, harrowing 
and raking, the varieties of grain, flax hemp, woade, 
reaping and the harvest. 

The second book treats of Gardens, Orchards and 
Woodes, the third of feeding, breeding and curing of 
Cattell and the fourth of Poultrie, Foule, Fish and Bees. 
There are 368 pages in all, and on the last page, he gives 
us Old English Rules for purchasing land as follows: 


OUR farm in cedar vardEy 



“Who so will be wise in purchasing, 

Let him consider these points following. 
First see that the land be clere, 

In title of the seller. 

And that it stand in danger, 

Of no womans dowrie. 

See whether the tenure be bond or free, 
And release of euery feoflee. 

See that the seller be of age, 

And that it lie not in morgage. 

Whether a taile bee thereof found, 

And whether it stand in statute bound. 
Consider what seruice longeth thereto, 
And what Quitrent there out must go. 














OLD ENGLISH FARMERS 


227 


And if it be come of a wedded woman, 
Think thou then on couert baron, 

And if thou may in any wise, 

Make the Charter with warrantise. 

To thee, thine heires, assignes also, 

Thus should a wise purchaser do/’ 

Sir John Norden’s “Surveyor’s Dialogue” appeared 
in 1607. The author says that the increase in the price 
of corn and of rents is due to the competition of tenants 
Gervase Markham’s “Country Contentments” was 
printed in 1611. His “English Husbandman” in 1613, 
“Cheap and Good Husbandry” in 1614, “The English 
Housewife” in 1615, the “Farewell to Husbandry” in 
1620, “A Way to Get Wealth” in 1625, and the “Whole 
Art of Husbandry” in 1631. Markham appears to have 
been a hack writer who wrote upon many subjects, and 
this list of his writings on farming is not complete. That 
his writings were appreciated is shown by the fact that 
my copy of “A Way to Get Wealth” issued in 1683 is 
the fourteenth impression. Eleven editions of “Country 
Contentments” and nine of “The English Housewife” had 
been issued by this time. The following is taken from 
“Country Contentments,” 1683: 

“Now for your Lines, you shall understand that they 
are to be made of the strongest, longest, and best grown 
Horse-hair that can be got, not that which groweth on 


228 


OUR farm in cedar valley 


his Main, nor upon the upper part or setting on his tayl, 
but that which groweth from the middle and inmost part 
of his dock, and so extendeth itself down to the ground 
being the biggest and strongest hairs about the Horse: 
neither are these hairs to be gathered from poor, lean and 
diseased Jades of little price and value, but from the 
fattest, soundest, and proudest Horse you can find, for 
the best Horse hath even the best hair; neither would 
your hairs be gathered from Nags, Mares, or Geldings, 
but from ston’d Horses only of which the black hair is 
the worst, the white or gray best, and other colours 
indifferent. Those Lines which you make for small fish, 
as Gudgeon, Whiting, or Menew, would be composed of 
three hairs: those which you make for Pearch or Trout, 
would be of five hairs, and those for the Chub or Barbel, 
would be of seven: To those of three hairs, you shall 
add one thread of silk; to those of five, two threads of 
silk; and to those of seven three threads of silk. You 
shall twist your hairs neither too hard nor too slack, but 
even so as they may twind and couch close one within 
another, and no more, without either snarling or gaping 
one from another; the end you shall fasten together with a 
fishers knot, which is your ordinary fast knots, foulded 
four times about both under and above, for this will not 
loose in the water, but being drawn close together, will 
continue, when all other knots will fail; for a hair being 


OLD ENGLISH FARMERS 


229 


smooth and stiff, will yield and go back, if it be not artifi¬ 
cially drawn together. Your ordinary line would be be¬ 
tween three and four fadom in length; yet for as much as 
there are diversities in the length of rods, in the depth of 
waters, and in the places of standing to angle in, it shall be 
good to have lines of divers lengths, and to take those 
which shall be fittest for your purpose. 

‘‘These lines, though the natural hairs being white or 
gray, be not much offensive, yet it shall not be amis to 
colour them according to the seasons of the year, for so 
they will least scare the Fish, and soonest incite them to 
bite with most greediness; and of colours, the best is the 
water-green, which you shall make after this manner: 
Take a pottle of Allom-water, and put thereunto a great 
handful of Marigolds, & let them boil well, till a yellow 
scum rise upon the water, then take half a pound of 
green Copperas, and as much Verdigrease, beaten to fine 
powder, and put it with the hair into the water, and so 
let it boil again a pretty space, and then set it aside for 
half a day, then take out your hair, and lay it where it 
may dry, and you shall see it of a delicate green colour, 
which indeed is the best water-green that may be. This 
colour is excellent to angle with in all clear waters where 
the line lies plain, and most discovered, and will continue 
from the beginning of the Spring to the beginning of 
Winter.” 


230 


our farm in cedar vardey 


Volume II of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England contains a paper written by the Rev. 
W. Rhan upon Flemish husbandry who says that the 
methods “of tillage adopted by the cultivators of Flanders 
have long and beneficially engaged the attention of the 
British farmer.” He tells us that the soil of Flanders is, 
much of it, almost pure sand. “The industry of the ten¬ 
ants of these sands is proverbial. The poor sandy heaths 
which have been converted into productive farms, evince 
their indefatigable industry and perseverance. The sands 
in the Campine can be compared to nothing but the sands 
on the sea shore, which they probably were originally. 
It is highly interesting to follow step by step, the progress 
of improvement. Here you see a cottage and rude cow 
shed erected on a spot of the most unpromising aspect. 
The loose white sand, blown into irregular mounds, is 
merely kept together by the roots of the heath, a small 
spot only is levelled and surrounded by a ditch. Part 
of this is covered by young broom; another part is 
covered with potatoes; and perhaps a small patch of 
diminutive clover may show itself; but there is a heap 
of dung and compost forming. The urine of the cow 
is collected in a small tank, or perhaps in a cask sunk 
in the earth; and this is the nucleus from which in a few 
years a little farm will spread around.” 

It is probably from this source that clover and 
turnips were introduced by Sir Richard Weston who 


OLD ENGLISH FARMERS 


231 


wrote a “Discourse on the Husbandry of Flanders and 
Brabant” in 1645. 

The first edition of Walter Blith’s “Improver Im¬ 
proved” was published in 1649. Blith was one of Crom¬ 
well’s captains and to him and the Council of State the 
book is dedicated. Blith discourses first of the cause of 
barrenness in land and its remedies. The first remedy 
where it can be applied is irrigation. This is applicable 
especially to those tracts that lie near small streams, for 
with larger streams the fall is so little that there is not 
so good an opportunity (I ami quoting from the third 
edition printed in 1652). The second remedy is the 
draining of boggy land. A third method is by cutting 
new water courses where the old ones are crooked, or 
straightening the old ones. The next method is to select 
those tracts best suited for pasture and so use them, 
and also devote to tillage only those tracts suited to it. 
From this he passes to a description of the tools used 
in trenching, the destruction of moles, ant hills, gorse, 
broom, brake and the planting of fruit trees on the land. 
He advocates planting trees in the hedges so as to supply 
timber and apples for cider making, thereby saving malt 
which may be used instead for bread. 

He makes a scarecrow by digging a hole two feet 
in diameter and twenty inches deep. Around this hole 


232 


OUR farm IN CEDAR VADUEY 


the feathers of a dead crow are stuck into the earth and 
the same sort of feathers on the mound of earth from the 
hole. Other feathers may be used but they must be 
black. 

Sometimes it is necessary to raise water several 
feet if irrigation is to be practised, and a copper plate 
showing two forms of Persian water wheel is inserted. 
The description is of a wheel driven by water power but 
the figures show two forms of windmill used for lifting 
water. 

He advocates liming the land, though some object 
that it is good for the father and bad for the son. He 
advocates also the use of marl. After marling four, 
five or six crops are to be taken; the land must be well 
dunged “that it will produce a gallant Clovery, and white 
Hunnie-suckle Grasse.” This cultivation of clover is 
returned to in a subsequent chapter where he -speaks 
of the great variety of clovers, of which he specially 
recommends the “great clover, or Trefoyl we fetch from 
Flanders called by Clusius, Trifoliummajus tertium, 
which bares the great red Honeysuckle, whose leaf & 
branches far exceeds our natural Meadow Clover.” 

Blith advocates the use of seaweed and river mud 
as manure. He recommends that covered stables be 
built for the sheep and that sand be hauled in every week 
and spread to the depth of three inches. 


OLD ENGLISH FARMERS 


233 


Two chapters are devoted to a description of the 
wood lot, specifying the trees that are to be grown and 
how to raise them. In the second part he tells how to 
plant the “Trefoyle or great Clover Grass.” The next 
chapter speaks of the use of “St. Foyne and La-lucern.” 
Six chapters are given to the description of ploughs and 
their use. Succeeding chapters describe the growing of 
Welde, Would or Dyars-weed; of woad, madder, hops, 
saffron, liquorish, rape and cole-seed, hempe and flax. 
Two chapters are given to the orchard and garden. 

I have spoken of Jethro Tull in a previous chapter. 
The first edition of Tulls book was entitled “Specimen 
of a Work on Horsehoeing Husbandry.” It appeared 
in 1731, and the second edition in 1733. Tull studied 
very carefully the root system of plants which he found 
extended to greater distances under the surface than had 
been supposed. By planting a row of turnips down the 
middle of a wedge-shaped plat of land he found that the 
turnips planted at the head of the wedge grew much 
larger than at the point, from which he concluded that 
roots extend much further horizontally also than had been 
supposed. He finds that lucern and sanfoin have long 
tap roots, which accounts for the good crops from them 
in dry summers. Most people, he says, suppose roots 
to be short because they taper rapidly, but he has noticed 
that after they have grown quite small they no longer 


2 34 


OUR farm in cfdar vaurfy 


taper but extend to a great length of uniform diameter. 
In one case.he found that the roots of a witch-elm had 
extended in three years eight times the length of the tree, 
which was five or six yards long. In another case he 
found roots passing under a trench two feet deep and 
extending much over five feet on the other side. 

From a study of roots he proceeds to a study of 
leaves. Here he concludes that leaves are the lungs of 
plants. At this time, however, neither the function of 
carbon dioxide nor of oxygen in relation to plants had 
been discovered and it is not strange that his study of 
the leaf should have been without fruit. 

In a chapter on the food of plants, Tull shows that 
i, nitre; 2, water; 3, air; 4, fire; 5, earth “contribute in 
some manner to the increase of plants, but it is disputed 
which of them is that very increase or food.” (Cobbett’s 
edition, 1822). Of these he finds the last to be the real 
food. 

In a succeeding chapter on the pasture of plants he 
shows that the finer the earth is ground the richer it 
becomes; this is independent of the method used in grind¬ 
ing. “These particles which are the pabulum of plants, 
are so very minute and light, as not to be singly attracted 
to the earth, if separated from those parts to which they 
adhere, or with which they are in contact (like dust 
to a looking-glass, turn it upwards, or downwards, it 


OLD ENGLISH FARMERS 


235 


will remain affixed to it), as these particles do to those 
parts, until from thence removed by some agent.” He 
distinguishes, then, between the natural pasture of plants 
and the artificial pasture produced by tillage; and he 
points to the extraordinary increase of sanfoin, clover 
and natural grass when grown in fine earth as showing 
how greatly the artificial pasturage exceeds the natural; 
and “The common methods of dividing the soil are 
these, viz., by dung, by tillage, or by both.” 

The next chapter is of dung, and he shows that: 
“All sorts of dung and compost contain some matter, 
which, when mixed with the soil, ferments therein, and 
by such ferment dissolves, crumbles, and divides the 
earth very much; this is the chief and almost only use 
of dung.” The “pasturage” by tillage without dung is, 
however, many times greater than that of dung without 
tillage. 

In the next chapter he considers tillage and shows 
that it benefits all kinds of land whether light or heavy, 
but harsh uncivil clay is the least profitable to keep in 
tillage. The next chapter is about hoeing. Tillage, he 
tells us means the breaking of the land before seeding, 
while hoeing is the stirring of the land afterwards. 
Transplanting has somewhat the same effect as hoeing 
but is much inferior in its effects. One of the advantages 
of hoeing is that it removes some of the fine roots each 


236 


OUR farm in cfdar VAIvUFY 


time and gives new pasture to the new roots which are 
then sent forth. Hoeing also conserves moisture and 
attracts moisture from the dew. 

In Chapter X he tells us that it is only of late years 
that turnips have been introduced as an improvement in 
the field. He recommends planting turnips on ridges 
6 feet wide, one row of turnips in the middle of the 
ridge. The turnips are to be drilled the beginning of 
August. At Michaelmas, the turnips being of full size, 
he plows a ridge in the middle of the intervals, taking 
most of the earth away from the turnips, leaving only 
enough to keep them alive. In the middle of this ridge 
he planted three rows of wheat, 7 inches apart. In plant¬ 
ing turnips, he drills a mixture of old and new seed; the 
old seed sprouts slower than the new and one or other 
set of plants escapes the fly, making the production of 
a crop more likely. The space between the rows of 
wheat are to be hand-hoed, which gives shallow culti¬ 
vation, while the wide spaces are to be horse-hoed, which 
gives deeper and better cultivation. 

Tull was born at Basildon in Berkshire in 1674. 
He was a student of St. John’s College, Oxford, and 
studied law but never practised. He was consumptive, 
and began farming his father’s land at Howberry near 
Wallingford. He was an indefatigable student and 
worker and having formed the idea that the fertility of 


0RD ENGRISH FARMERS 


237 


a soil depended upon the fineness of the particles, he 
invented a horse hoe or cultivator to promote the opera¬ 
tion of pulverizing the soil. He noticed that his workmen 
broadcasted the seed unevenly, getting too much upon 
some portions and too little on others and his drill was 
the solution. Both these machines were soon greatly 
improved upon, but nevertheless Tull deserves great 
honor as the originator of two important advances in 
agriculture. He was accused of having borrowed from 
Fritzherbert, Sir Hugh Plat, Gabriel Plattes and others 
and he defended himself in several pamphlets. Whether 
he borrowed or not is immaterial. We are all inheritors 
of the ages and must borrow whether we will or no; but 
he bested his critics by pioneering a great advance, and 
it is to such men as he that the world is really indebted. 
He died in 1741. 

From very early days the nobility and gentry of 
England have shown great interest in agriculture and 
not a few have been active patrons in encouraging its 
improvement. Among those who were most successful 
in cultivating the taste of this class for country life and 
agricultural improvement in the English counties was 
Arthur Young born in 1741. His father was a Preben¬ 
dary of Canterbury and Rector of Bradford Combust, 
Suffolk. He was educated at Lavenham and then sent 
to Lyne to study commercial pursuits. His health broke 

16 


238 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAUEEY 


down and he finally agreed to manage his mother’s farm. 
After this he appears to have rented several farms with¬ 
out success. In the meantime he published a Six Weeks 
Tour Through the Southern Counties which was a 
great success, and a very few years later he made a tour 
through the eastern counties an account of which was 
published in four volumes. The success of these works 
was due in large part, no doubt, to a general public inter¬ 
est in the subject, and the fact that he was thus cultiva¬ 
ting an untilled field, for his knowledge of farming at 
this time was very elementary and imperfect. He also 
wrote a Farmer’s Calendar which passed through ten 
editions. In 1773 he became Chairman of the Committee 
of Agriculture of the Society of Arts. In 1780 he pub¬ 
lished a description of a tour of Ireland. Young was a 
friend of Priestley and through him acquired a taste 
for chemistry. In 1784 he began the publication of the 
Annals of Agriculture acting as both author and editor. 
Forty-five volumes were printed from 1784 to 1806. He 
died in 1811.* 

Robert Bakewell, who was born at Disley in Lancan- 
shire in 1725 and died there in 1795, was a famous 
breeder of live stock. He established the Dishley breed 
but this was superseded by the Durham breed of short 
horns. 

* I have taken this account of Young from a biography by J. A. Paris in 
Braude's Journal , 9 , 279. 


OI,D KNGUSH FARMERS 


239 


Robert Colling (1820) and his brother Charles 
(1836) were famous. Other famous farmers of that 
day were George and Matthew Culley. It is stated that 
at their farm of Wark, the crop of oats when they began 
working it was fifteen bushels and of wheat nine. This 
was in 1786. Fifteen years later it was eighty-four 
bushels oats, sixty-two wheat and seventy-two barley. 
They were warm friends of Bakewell and great breeders 
of live stock. 

The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manu¬ 
factures and Commerce was founded at London in 1776 
under the Presidency of Jacob, Lord Viscount Folkestone. 
In 1783 they published the first volume of their trans¬ 
actions. Among the premiums awarded in 1779 was 
one of twenty pounds to David Day, who lived near 
Rochester in Kent, for a plantation of ash and again in 
1880 for a plantation of 32 acres of ash. A gold medal 
was awarded to Francis Moore of Apsley Guise for 22 
acres of Scotch Firs. Twenty pounds was awarded to 
Lewen Tugwell of Beverstone in Gloucestershire in 1777 
for turnip-rooted cabbage. In 1780 thirty pounds was 
divided between Tugwell and Thomas Robbins also for 
turnip-rooted cabbage. 

The Royal Agriculture Society of England was not 
founded until 1840. 


CHAPTER XXXI 

Potash for Farming 

HE fertilizers that the farmer must 
buy are potash and phosphoric acid 
unless they are contained in his soil 
or the underlying rocks. Of phos- 
f+o phoric acid, chiefly in the form of 
phosphate of lime or bone ash, we have an abundant 
supply in the deposits in South Carolina and Florida, 
those more recently discovered in Tennessee and the vast 
deposits still more recently found in Idaho. 

Until recently we have supposed ourselves almost 
destitute of potash, and such appeared to be the case; 
but the necessities of the war made us develop our own 
resources as nothing else could have done, and we now 
find ourselves with an almost unlimited potential supply 
with the probability, almost the certainty, that in a few 
years we shall be selling instead of buying this essential 
commodity. 

(1) In the granite rocks we have an immense 
storehouse of this material. This is at present for the 
most part unavailable. The percentage is small and the 
cost of extraction at present too great. 

(2) In certain portions of the granite, crystalliza¬ 
tion has taken place slowly and the feldspar has crystal¬ 
lized out in great masses. On examining these eastern 
deposits in 1912, however, I found that very few of them 






POTASH FOR FARMING 


24I 


were of very great extent and the cost of mining the 
spar was very heavy. Feldspar is already in great demand 
as a material for use both in the body and the glaze of 
pottery and it commands a high price. The theoretical 
percentage of potash contained in it is over 16, but the 
actual amount present is seldom over 12 per cent and 
often there is not that much present. This material is, 
like granite, hard to decompose and the yield is small. 

(3) These or similar objections may be urged 
against leucite and sericite. These are rock formations 
which are found in large masses. 

(4) In many alkali lakes, as is Searles Lake, Cal., 
the alkaline salts from an immense district have accumu¬ 
lated in the center of the nearly dried up basins. Lower 
California and Nevada contain many of these playa lakes 
all differing somewhat in the dissolved salts they contain. 
Practically all of them contain common salt and Glauber’s 
salt; many contain borax and baking or washing soda, 
or both. Some success was attained during the war in 
recovering these salts and I think the efforts now being 
made will finally be successful, but they are a long way 
from market. 

(5) I have left until the last the largest and most 
promising source of all—one which has so far been only 
very imperfectly developed, but which I think will before 
very many years put us in a position to lead the world 


242 OUR FARM IN CEDAR VAEEEY 

in the production of potash. The material in question 
is the greensand or glauconite underlying a considerable 
area in southern New Jersey, extending from Atlantic 
Highlands to Salem, a distance of one hundred miles, with 
an uncertain width and thickness, though the latter seems 
to me in most cases from 12-30 feet. If we suppose this 
bed to be one hundred miles long, and ten miles wide and 
ten feet thick this would give us in cubic feet 5,280 x 100 
x 5,280 x 10 x 10 = 278,780,000,000 cubic feet. This 
will weigh, at 90 pounds a cubic foot 25,090,200,000,000 
pounds or 12,545,100,000 tons. If this contain 5 per cent 
potash this will give us 627,255,000 tons. Our present 
consumption is between 200 and 300 thousand tons per 
annum, so this will give us a supply for several centuries 
to come. 

This material is found under an overburden which 
can rapidly be removed with a steam shovel. The green¬ 
sand is about as coarse as celery seed and can readily be 
excavated and loaded at nominal cost with a hydraulic 
elevator, and lies near large cities, in a farming district 
where the product is needed, near water carriage, fuel, 
labor, supplies and markets. 

I have found that the valuable materials in the sand— 
the iron, alumina, and potash may be dissolved out with 
muriatic acid of 1.12 specific gravity, and that by evapor¬ 
ating to dryness, heating to 310° and steaming the hydro¬ 
chloric acid may all be recovered to be used over again. 


POTASH FOR FARMING 


243 


Glauconite is a material which is supposed to have 
been deposited on the ocean floor. It is listed by Dana 
among the silicates, and contains about 50 per cent silica, 
25 per cent oxide of iron, 9 per cent alumina, 7 per cent 
potash, 1 per cent lime, 2 per cent magnesia and 6 per 
cent water. 

There is a great deal of uncertainty apparent in 
the minds of mineralogists about this mineral, and this 
is reflected'in their comments. It takes the form usually 
of casts of the shells of foraminifera. The material is 
said to be granular but not crystalline. 

I am looking for an early solution of the problem 
of a cheap method of extracting the potash. In doing 
this we must not forget that we have here not only a 
large source of potash but also that it contains enormous 
stores of silica for glass making, of alumina for aluminum 
and alum and iron for iron and steel. 

In a recent (August, 1921, Vol. 13, No. 8, p. 693) 
number of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering 
Chemistry there is an article by R. Norris Sheve on the 
method of attacking gluconite with lime with or without 
nitrates. I doubt, however, whether this will prove the 
best method, for it takes out only part of the potash and 
leaves the iron. I am inclined, also, to think this re¬ 
action may be reversible. 


CHAPTER XXXII 

Some Entirely New Ideas 

In the Hugo Muller Lecture, delivered before the 
London Chemical Society on June 16, 1921, Benjamin 
Moore advances some ideas which are exceedingly sug¬ 
gestive, but which are not fully elaborated. He begins 
by asking the question: How did life originate on this 
planet? In the beginning it is evident that: “Therefore 
there must be supplied some stages that lie between any¬ 
thing, even so simple as the single unicellular alga, and 
the inorganic world.” He thinks that the fundamental 
law in all evolution is the law of complexity. This 
means, that as soon as it is possible for matter to become 
more complex under the energy field in which it exists 
it obeys the law and becomes more complex. Thus, in 
the atom: the electrons grouped about some central basis 
grow steadily more complex, getting heavier and heavier 
until it grows unstable. Then we get the radioactive 
elements. These give the mono molecules. To these 
water of crystallization is added until the molecules 
become too complex and they pass into colloids. As these 
grow more complex they become metastable. Their 
reactions are much slower than those of the simple inor¬ 
ganic compounds, and so we pass on towards life. 
“Always nature is phasic, and the periodicity of move¬ 
ment becomes slower as the organism becomes larger 


SOME ENTIRELY NEW IDEAS 


245 


and larger; and it is as it reaches these larger stages 
that it begins to react with outside forms of energy in 
a new manner.” “As the colloid becomes more complex 
it acquires the power to react to the light, and it is only 
when a stage has been reached at which reaction to light 
can occur that it becomes feasible to build up living 
creatures.” Then there was adsorption, as in the diatom. 
These organisms, formed perhaps from silica colloids, 
build the colloid into their skeletons. There must be 
color screens in the plant to shut out the germicidal rays 
of ultra violet light which kill the bacteria. Ozone is 
formed in the upper air by this ultra violet light which 
is so powerful there, and this absorbs most of the ultra 
violet light, but a small part passes through. Now it 
has been shown that light of short wave length will 
cause nitrogen and oxygen, and nitrogen and hydrogen 
to unite. 

In the sea where life first started, most of the organ¬ 
isms still belong to the algae. The reason is, probably, 
because it gives them perfect nourishment. It is not 
until the equinox, about in March, that the sun gets so 
high that much light penetrates into the sea water. With¬ 
out any rise in temperature a wonderful outburst of 
life takes place. This light develops alkali in the sea 
water by decomposing the bicarbonates of lime and mag¬ 
nesia present, the carbonates formed giving to it a faint 


246 


OUR FARM IN CFDAR VALRFY 


alkaline reaction. In order that the higher terrestrial 
plants should evolve it was necessary that they should 
form a semipermeable membrane to prevent the alkali 
from passing into the surrounding medium. This alkali 
is used over and over again and remains in the plant. 
Now it is ready to step ashore and live a terrestrial life. 

There is not the slightest evidence to show that 
nitrites are produced by electric discharges. They are 
produced entirely by the action of light on the mixture 
of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. Nitrates and 
nitrites accumulate only in countries where there is 
brilliant sunshine as in Chile and India. If we take a 
soup plate containing a one-ten thousandth solution of 
sodium nitrate and expose it to sunlight, nitrite is pro¬ 
duced with the absorption of energy. In the presence of 
sunlight the green material of the cell will take up nitrogen 
from the atmosphere and transform it into protein. 

Formaldehyde is produced from carbon dioxide and 
water by the action of certain wave lengths of light. 
From other wave lengths this is converted into carbo¬ 
hydrates, fats, proteins and other materials, ready for the 
plant. “Everything in Nature is phasic, and it is as a 
result of that phasic variation that we are able to progress 
in evolution and build up from one thing to another. 
Take all the pools around the coast. In winter they are 
acid. As the spring goes on they get more and more 


SOME ENTIRELY NEW IDEAS 


247 


alkaline. You see the possibility that is expressed there 
for producing natural variations. One pool may be con¬ 
siderably more alkaline than another, and some new 
birth of creature may arise in it simply because its re¬ 
action is entirely changed. ,, 

This brief summary is perhaps too brief to be fol¬ 
lowed unless by very concentrated thought. It opens up 
a very wide field. It has been well said that until lately 
our methods of synthesis employed in chemistry have 
been very rough and drastic ones, entirely unlike those 
found in nature where very much closer economy of ma¬ 
terial and energy is the rule. Perhaps we may here find 
the key which will presently enable us to transform 
matter so economically as to rival or exceed that of the 
plant and build up foods from the energy of the sunlight 
and the wind without the intervention of the plant at all. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 

Summary and Conclusion 

Nearly a year has passed since I wrote the preceding 
chapters. In this time I have been studying and thinking 
about the subject of farming,—I do not mean agricul¬ 
ture, I mean farming—and I have about concluded that, 
at least for land like that in Cedar Valley, the two fac¬ 
tors of prime importance in raising heavy crops are 
humus to lighten and fertilize the soil and water applied 
in abundance whenever it is needed in the hot summer 
months. The proper supply of humus is obtained by 
buying feed and stocking the farm heavily for the pro¬ 
duction of butter, cream or milk. This will give an 
abundant supply of manure for this purpose. The 
streams on the place will give much of the needed water. 
All that will be necessary will be the construction of 
dams to collect the water and channels to carry it where 
it is needed. Where this is insufficient either or both of 
two courses may be followed. If the first is followed 
we will put up windmills and sink wells. In the second 
we will construct cisterns to catch the winter rains. By 
building walls around the contours of the hills a series 
of terraces is to be constructed. The walls must be 
sunk in the ground sufficiently, so that when the soil is 
removed from the foot to fill the terrace below, enough 
soil is left to prevent heaving of the foundation. I should 


SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 


249 


begin by constructing the upper wall first. The soil above 
it is then filled in behind it by plowing, throwing the 
furrow downhill every time until a proper grade is ob¬ 
tained. It is not necessary that the terraces be flat. A 
grade of two inches to ten feet will be about right. This 
will throw the water toward the lower wall which should 
project at least a foot above the soil so as to prevent the 
water from flowing over the edge. The surface of the 
terrace should also be graded alternately to the right and 
left at least one-half inch to the foot for a distance of 
one hundred feet from the center. At this lowest point 
above the wall a grating is to be placed opening into the 
cistern below the terrace and lying across it for its full 
width. The water from this cistern is to be used in time 
of drouth in watering a corresponding area on the ter¬ 
race below it. In this latitude the yearly rainfall aver¬ 
ages 45 inches annually, more than half of which falls in 
the winter months from November to April while the 
ground is frozen. I believe that a cistern 10 feet wide 
and 8 feet deep with a length equal to the width of 
the terrace may be filled from a surface covering 100 
feet on either side. This will flood the lower terrace 
to a depth of one inch (corresponding to the rainfall of 
a heavy shower) nearly four times, which in most cases 
would be ample to carry over drouth. Such periods 
occur nearly every year and these drouths cut down the 


250 


OUR FARM IN CEDAR VALLEY 


crop more than all other causes combined. It is true 
that we occasionally have a rainy season, but this happens 
as a rule only once in five or six years at the most, while 
drouth is very frequent. It may be objected that no 
farmer can think of terracing his land, to say nothing 
of the necessary expense of providing cisterns. If it 
were necessary to hire labor at current rates for this pur¬ 
pose I should agree, but this is not necessary. As a rule 
farmers work hard for five months and lie around for 
seven. They would be much better off if the last fall 
and the first spring month were put in digging cisterns 
and putting up walls. In the course of time as popula¬ 
tion increases the hills must be terraced as they have 
been in all lands densely populated, and the man who has 
the courage to do this work now will reap an annual 
reward in increased crops. It will also be possible to 
work such terraced land with tractors which will de¬ 
crease the expense, and there will be an end of the 
heavy toll paid in loss of fertility caused by floods wash¬ 
ing away the fine soil. Since part of the excess water 
is caught and stored, floods should be less severe. 




























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